For the past 10 years, researchers at the University of Salzburg have benefitted from the Kurt Zopf Prize, a generous bequest from Mr. Kurt Zopf, receiving up to 10,000 euros in prize money annually. This prize is awarded in recognition of their outstanding, internationally acclaimed publications and serves to promote their further career paths.

The award meeting for the 2020 call took place on 13 October 2021. As expected, many excellent entries were received. Nevertheless, the jury decided to award only one prize:

The “Kurt-Zopf-Förderpreis 2020” is awarded in full to

Ms. Assoz.-Prof. Dr. Iris Gratz

(Department of Biosciences).

The following publication was chosen:

Klicznik, M. M., Morawski, P. A., Höllbacher, B., Varkhande, S. R., Motley, S. J., Kuri-Cervantes, L., Goodwin, E., Rosenblum, M. D., Long, S. A., Brachtl, G., Duhen, T., Betts, M. R., Campbell, D. J. & Gratz, I. K. (2019)

Human CD4+CD103+ cutaneous resident memory T cells are found in the circulation of healthy individuals

In: Science immunology. 4, 37

The award will be presented to Prof. Dr. Iris Gratz on 24 November 2021 as part of the “Night of Excellence” event.

About the process:

In 2020, the call for proposals was aimed at journal articles in the fields of natural sciences, human medicine and technical sciences in which researchers from the University of Salzburg played a leading role. Another requirement was that the journal article had been published within the three calendar years preceding the call for applications.

The submitted applications were reviewed by a committee consisting of high-ranking and experienced experts from outside the University.

Selection criteria

The jury’s assessment was based on the following criteria: “reputation of the publication medium”, “originality of the publication’s objective”, “novelty” and “scientific significance” of the results as well as the “quality of the preparation” and the “presentation of the content”. The “contribution of the applicant in the case of multi-authorship” and the ” genesis of the publication” were also decisive criteria.

Jury members for awarding the Kurt Zopf Prize 2020 were:

• a.o.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alexander EGLE
• Univ.-Prof. Dr. Tobias GREITEMEYER
• Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dirk STRUNK
• em.O.Univ.-Prof. Dipl.‑Ing. Dr. Ulrich SCHUBERT