The awards are funded jointly by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and support researchers in all sciences, i.e. the disciplines in which the Society will elect researchers to the Fellowship of the Royal Society (all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering).
The primary aim of this scheme is to provide universities with additional support to enable them to attract to the UK, or retain, respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential. Awards are made to the university and therefore researchers must remain at the university named on the application.