It’s a celebration of maternal and child health heroes

The Penta’s Brighter Future Award (BFA) is an annual award recognising global maternal and child health champions who go the extra mile to improve health outcomes for children and pregnant people living with infectious diseases globally. The award is open to individuals or organisations.

The three broader goals of the BFA are the following:

• To provide opportunities for scientists to connect with and learn from local communities at the forefront of maternal and child health
• To support initiatives designed to improve maternal and child health, especially in neglected and emerging old and new childhood infections
• To help scientists work towards solutions that have a real-world impact on public health by closing the gaps between science and society.

The BFA offers a € 5,000 prize to each of its seven winners, giving them the financial support they need to continue their essential work.

But that’s not all! The BFA will fly the winners – all expenses paid – to Penta’s biennial scientific meeting (PIM 2024) in Italy to meet with our community of scientists. At PIM 2024, Penta will give the BFA winners a platform to share their work with our researchers and learn about our work.

This conference will begin a long-term relationship as we continue to partner for the brighter future of our children.

If a BFA winner is an organisation, one member will have the opportunity to travel to Italy for the BFA ceremony officially.

The Penta Brighter Future Award is open to individuals or organisations significantly contributing to maternal and child health, particularly infectious diseases affecting children. The BFA winners may include:

• Established community leaders
• Emerging researchers
• Professionals who have contributed considerably to the field.

Absolutely. We encourage group nominations. However, only one of the group members will officially travel to Italy in 2024 for the BFA ceremony.

The BFA will award 7 prizes, € 5,000 each (any direct and indirect cost included).

There are 2 categories in the BFA:

• Penta’s Brighter Future Award: Six awards will be given, one for each of the six regions listed in the BFA rules
• Penta’s Brighter Future Young Researcher Award: One award will be given to a researcher in the maternal and child health field.

Please see our definition of a Young Researcher here.

The Penta’s BFA will go to individuals or organisations whose work stands out for the following qualities:

• Innovation and commitment: Is their work innovative by addressing maternal and child health, specifically in infectious diseases prevention, treatment, and management in a new way; and is it committed to improving maternal and child health?
• Sustainability: The work is sustainable and replicable for other people in the field.
• Collaboration: The work being nominated is a product of collaboration with the community.
• Leadership: As demonstrated by the nominee’s vision and approach to the work.
• Social justice and inclusion: Penta BFA will only promote work that treats everyone equally irrespective of gender, age, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or personal identity.

The Penta’s Brighter Future Young Researcher Award will go to a young researcher whose research activity stands out for the following qualities:

• Demonstrated potential: The young researcher should have demonstrated potential for making significant contributions to the field of maternal and child health, specifically in infectious disease prevention, treatment, or management.
• Innovation and creativity: The young researcher should have demonstrated an innovative and creative approach to addressing the challenges of maternal and child health, such as developing new interventions, strategies, or technologies.
• Collaboration: The young researcher should have demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with others, such as working with other researchers or engaging with local communities to address maternal and child health challenges.
• Equity and social justice: The young researcher’s work should demonstrate a commitment to addressing the needs of marginalised or underserved populations.

Please see our definition of a Young Researcher here.

We define a Young Researcher as an individual undertaking or holding a PhD or equivalent professional training ready to develop their research identity. More specifically, we consider a Young Researcher to be an individual who is

• Pre-doctoral or doctoral student, or
• Post-doc within the first four years of employment after having received their PhD, or
• Resident (MDs in training within the first five years after becoming MD).

Please note that pro-rata applies in each case if there’s a career break, e.g., due to parental leave.

To nominate someone for the BFA is easy:

1. Go to the “Nominate” section on the BFA webpage of the Penta ID website.
2. Fill out the simple form and tell us about your nominee and why they should be given the BFA. We want to hear about their extraordinary work in preventing and treating infectious diseases in maternal and child health in their local community.

Keep in mind that you are not allowed to provide any sensitive information within your nomination, such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, health-related data, data concerning a person’s sex life or sexual orientation, trade union membership, or genetic data.

The person you are nominating must be 16 or older by 1st April 2024. You must be 16 or older to nominate someone for the BFA.

You must consent to share your information with our team per EU law. The nomination is not anonymous, and the nominee will be informed about the identity of the nominator.

Nominations are open from 15 June 2023 until 15 September 2023.

Once your nomination has reached us, we will need the nominee to accept the nomination by email. Please tell them to check their email.

If they accept the nomination, they will be asked to fill out a quick online form to tell us about their work and why they should be our next BFA champion.

Our BFA Jury will rigorously check through the nominations against the criteria listed in the Award Criteria section.

The Jury will vote for 21 finalists.

We will contact the finalists to ask them to send a short video of themselves talking about their work. It is mandatory to send your video to remain in the competition. Instructions on the video recording and submission will be provided.

Due to the global nature of this award, please kindly note that all entries will be in English, and the BFA will never judge anyone based on their English language skill.

The BFA team will share the videos of the 21 finalists with the Penta ID Network – a global community of healthcare professionals, researchers, and scientists – who will then submit their votes confidentially to our team.

To ensure every region worldwide is represented, we will cast final votes according to the following areas:

• North America: This region includes the US, Bermuda, St. Pierre, Miquelon, Canada, and Greenland.
• Central and South America: This region includes Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
• Europe: This region includes the countries of the continent of Europe, including Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and many others.
• Africa: This region includes the countries on the continent of Africa, including Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Tanzania, and many others.
• Asia: This region includes the countries of Asia, including China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, and many others.
• Oceania: This region includes the countries and islands of the Pacific Ocean, including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and many others.

The BFA will announce our seven finalists with the highest votes.