The Public Prize 2025 is open to outstanding scientists whose work fosters confidence in knowledge. The public can vote and support the scientist or researcher whose research they are most interested in. Voters will also be entered into a competition to win an unforgettable stay at Lomnický Štít, coupled with a gastronomic experience.and a visit to the observatory of the Institute of Astronomy and the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Voting is open until midnight on 8 October at cenaverejnosti.sk.

An international jury will select the laureates in the categories of Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia and Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia under the age of 35. This year the jury is headed by Edvard Moser, a prominent Norwegian neuroscientist and psychologist, who won the most prestigious scientific award for his discovery of the cells that make up the positional system of the brain. The other members of the jury are Valeria Nicolosi, an expert in nanomaterials, Tim Clausen, a structural biologist, Manuel Collados Vera, an astrophysicist, Manuel García-Carpintero, a philosopher, radiologist James C. Gee, chemist Zdeněk Havlas, social psychologist Stephen Reicher and economist Uwe Sunde.

The name of the winner of the Public Prize and the names of the laureates of all three categories will be announced during the gala ceremony, which will take place on 9 October at 20:00. After several years of cooperation with Slovak Television on the live broadcast, there will be a change in the broadcast - the ESET Science Award gala will be broadcast live online only, both at www.esetscienceaward.sk and on the Facebook profiles of media partners Denník N, SME and StartitUp.

This year, the Nobel Prize laureate will also be interviewed in a public discussion ESET Science Talks, the topic of which will be Science as a Pillar of Trust. In it, moderator Daniel Stach will talk to Edvard Moser about how scientific thinking and evidence help navigate a complex world. The discussion will take place on Friday, 10 October at 18.00 in the Old Market Hall in Bratislava. Admission to the discussion is free, but subject to registration at this link.

The public can vote for these outstanding scientists:

Vladimíra Kurincová Čavojová is a psychologist who works on scientific thinking, cognitive fallacies and unsubstantiated beliefs. She is the head of the Institute of Experimental Psychology at the Centre for Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v.v.i.

Zuzana Gdovinová is a neurologist specializing in cerebrovascular diseases. She is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (LF UPJŠ) in Košice and Head of the Neurological Clinic of LF UPJŠ and L. Pasteur University in Košice.

Martin Kahanec is an economist who focuses on labour market, migration and public policy research. He is a professor at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, at the Faculty of National Economy of the University of Economics in Bratislava and founder of the Bratislava central European Labour Research Institute (CELSI) in Bratislava, where he serves as Scientific Director. He is Chief Scientific Adviser to the European Commission and President of the Economics, Business and Management Sciences Section of the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences.

Karol Marhold is a botanist specialising in plant systematics and taxonomy, polyploidy and informatics applications in biodiversity studies. He has a special interest in the Brassicaceae and the genus Cardamine. He works as a senior researcher at the Botanical Institute of the Centre for Plant Biology and Biodiversity of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v.v.i. and as a professor of botany at Charles University in Prague.

Adam Tomašových is a palaeobiologist and geologist with a focus on macroecology and marine ecosystems. He is Head of the Department of Paleobiology and Evolution of Organisms at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, v.v.i.