The Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour 2026: Call for nominations

The Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour is awarded annually to honour people whose initiatives led to a lasting value for the research and education networking community and its users.

Eligible are individuals or groups with demonstrable, sustainable achievements in the set-up of a new organisation, service, technology or approach that help accelerating innovation in support of research and education networking. The Medal can be awarded to innovators as well as to those who have built on that innovation and made it sustainable. In case of proven collaboration, the Medal can also be assigned to different individuals involved in the process.

Medal recipients to date

Claudio Allocchio
John Boland
Andrew Cormack
Licia Florio
Christian Grimm
Jan Gruntorád
Laurel L. Haak
Roland Hedberg
Bartlomiej Idzikowski
Erik Kikkenborg
Natalia Manola
Ingrid Melve
Cathrin Stöver
Arjan Xhelaj

Nominations are now open

To nominate people who you consider are worthy recipients of the medal, send an e-mail explaining the reasons that you find the proposed candidate worthy of the award to: trustees@vietsch-foundation.org

Deadline for nominations is 1 December 2025.

The trustees of the Vietsch Foundation will consider all nominations and they will make a final decision on who will get the award. The decision is final and cannot be appealed.

The winner(s) of the 2026 cycle will receive the medal during a ceremony at the TNC26 conference in Helsinki.

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education. The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways: First, it contributes funding to specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking. And second, each year it awards a medal of honour to people who have contributed to the development of services or technologies of lasting value that are used by the networking community and its users in research, development and education. The Foundation was created through the last will and testament of Willem Karel Vietsch (1952–2014), a Dutch expert, a leader of the international Internet community, and also the Secretary-General of TERENA, a former association of European national research and education networks.