The Dan David Prize is an international prize that awards $3 million each year to early and midcareer scholars and practitioners who study the human past. Up to nine annual prizes of $300,000 each are given to people who have produced, and will continue to produce, outstanding work in this field. In addition, the Prize funds an international postdoctoral fellowship program at Tel Aviv University.

The Dan David Prize is the flagship project of the Dan David Foundation, an independent charitable organization based in Liechtenstein. The foundation was endowed in 2000 by the late Dan David, an entrepreneur in the field of automated photography with a keen interest in history and archaeology. The foundation supports research, higher education and breakthrough achievements in the humanities and sciences. The Prize is headquartered at Tel Aviv University.

No, the Dan David Prize does not fund projects, but rather supports individual scholars and practitioners with the goal of encouraging and enabling future work.

While we expect winners to have completed at least one major project, the prize is not given for that project, but rather in recognition of the winner’s overall achievements as well as their potential for future excellence.

Winners are recommended by an international selection committee composed of leading scholars and practitioners in history and related fields. The identities of the selection committee members are made public each year after the winners are announced. The final list of winners is ratified by the Prize’s Board.

Nominees must meet the criteria outlined in the nomination guidelines.

No. The Prize is not limited by age. The Prize is limited by career stage (early/midcareer). Please review the question on career stages for more information.

No. The Dan David Prize welcomes nominations from anywhere in the world.

Yes, people who were nominees in previous years can be nominated again.

The prize is awarded for work in the field of history, broadly defined as the study of the past in relation to humankind. Relevant disciplines include (but are not limited to): history, archaeology, art history, paleontology and science-based approaches to the study of the human past. The Prize is not given for work on the past of the earth or the universe (e.g. geology or astronomy).

No. All those whose work explores and interprets the past can be considered for the Dan David Prize. This includes scholars within academia, but also independent scholars, public historians, museum curators and documentary filmmakers, among others.

These are the minimum and maximum requirements to be considered “early or midcareer” for the purposes of the Prize:

For academic nominees:

Minimum: holding a PhD in hand, as well as having published one book, or a collection of articles related to a major project.

Maximum: Nominees should be no more than 15 years post-PhD, although due allowance will be made for career breaks (e.g. parental and care leave or duties, health-related leave and career changes).

For non-academic nominees:

No higher academic degree is required.

Minimum: having completed at least one major project, such as a book, exhibition, documentary film or public humanities initiative.

Maximum: Nominees should be no more than 15 years after the release of their first significant project (such as a book, major exhibition, film etc.), although due allowance will be made for career breaks (e.g. parental and care leave or duties, health-related leave and career changes).

Anyone can submit a nomination for the Prize, however self-nominations will not be considered.

The deadline to submit nominations for the 2025 Prize was September 30, 2024. the deadline for the 2026 Prize will be in the fall of 2025. We are no longer accepting nominations for the 2025 Prize but you may nominate for the 2026 Prize.

Yes, you may nominate as many candidates as you like.

No. The Prize is an individual award, and your nominee must be one specific person rather than a pair, a group or an institution.

A winner who works as part of a team may choose to use their Prize to fund the work of that team.

To nominate, click here.

You will be required to register to the website, even if you have previously nominated for the Prize.

You are not required to submit any additional documents with your nomination. This field exists to allow you to add any documentation you think may be helpful. Some nominators use it to include a writing sample, while others use it to include information on non-academic projects such as brochures to public history exhibits, links to video files etc. Some nominators have used this field to add a letter of reference, but we neither require nor expect additional letters of reference beyond the information in the nomination form.

No, we regret that we cannot offer individual feedback on nominations.

Prize winners will normally be required to participate in an award ceremony and related programming. Winners will be offered support in finding platforms to disseminate their scholarship to a broad public or to audiences they would not normally reach.

The Prize is transferred as a lump sum. It may be possible to transfer all or part of the award through the winner’s institution, provided the institution does not take any overhead and the winner retains control of the funds.

The Prize money is intended to support the winners’ future research work in a variety of possible ways. These can include (but are not limited to): funding for a specific project, research travel, buying time off teaching or other duties, funding for research assistants, funding of work-related equipment and income for living expenses which will allow winners to focus on their work.

No. The Dan David Prize has no residency requirement.