Five ERC grantees win 2026 Wolf Prizes
The Prize in Mathematics went to ERC grantees David Kazhdan from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Joseph Bernstein from the Tel Aviv University “for foundational work on representation theory, automorphic forms and algebraic geometry, and their role in creating geometric representation theory”. Professor Kazhdan’s research is centred on the Langlands programme, a programme that describes a series of conjectures that build connections between several areas of mathematics, including theory, number theory, geometry and harmonic analysis. He has been supported by two ERC Advanced Grants awarded in 2009, 2014 and an ongoing one awarded in 2023. With his ERC Advanced Grant from 2011, Professor Bernstein explored new mathematical approaches to better understand structures in representation theory and number theory.
David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian, both ERC-funded, from the University of Cambridge won the Chemistry Prize “for developing impactful, low-cost, large-scale DNA sequencing methods for genomic medicine”. They share the prize with Pascal Mayer, University of Strasbourg. Professor Klenerman obtained an ERC Advanced Grant in 2014 and investigated the role of protein oligomers in neurodegenerative disease. Professor Balasubramanian received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2013 to study the chemical biology of RNA G-quadruplexes and their role in biological processes.
The Prize in Physics was awarded to ERC grantee Immanuel Bloch, from Max Planck Institute and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, “for transformative, widely applicable advances in the control of ultracold atomic systems”. He shares the prize with Jun Ye, National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), University of Colorado). Professor Bloch was awarded a ERC Synergy Grant from 2012 for collaborative work to analyse the behaviour of atoms at very low temperatures to better understand the laws of quantum physics.
About the Wolf Prize
The international Wolf Prizes are awarded to outstanding scientists and artists from around the world, for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations amongst peoples. The scientific categories of the prize include Medicine, Agriculture, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. The prize in each field consists of a certificate and a monetary award of 100 000 US dollars.
