Celebrating Science's Hidden Heroes
From the background to the spotlight: The Helmholtz Software Award recognizes the often overlooked work of software developers in the association.
Many important milestones in research would not have been possible without scientific software. With the Helmholtz Software Award, the Helmholtz Association honors the outstanding work of its software engineers.
The prize is intended as a symbol of appreciation for the silent heroes of science who drive progress in their disciplines with their software solutions.
In science, this kind of work is often not sufficiently rewarded.
Uwe Konrad, Initiator of the Helmholtz Software Award
Award categories and evaluation
In order to reflect the diversity and different character of the software projects, the award consists of three prize categories. The main prize, the "Best Scientific Software", is given for scientific excellence and success in the respective community, as evidenced by publications, for example. The "Sustainability Prize" is reserved exclusively for open source software that is sustainable according to the FAIR principles. The third category, the "Newcomer Prize", is aimed at promising young software projects and is of particular interest to doctoral researchers and early career research groups.
The Helmholtz centers were invited to nominate up to three software projects for the award. The submitted programs were then evaluated in a two-stage process by national and international experts using a point system.
From a total of 35 submissions from 17 centers, the three winners were:
Best Scientific Software
CP2K – Quantum Chemistry and Solid State Physics Software Package
Representative: Thomas Kühne (HZDR)
More information on the software!
Sustainability Prize
FastSurfer
Representative: Martin Reuter (DZNE)
More information on the software!
Newcomer Prize
MemBrain v2
Representative: Lorenz Lamm (Helmholtz Munich)
More information on the software!
The award ceremony took place at an Incubator workshop on November 24th, 2025 in Berlin.
The Helmholtz Software Award is a cooperation between HIFIS - Helmholtz Federated IT Services, the Helmholtz Open Science Office, the HIRSE_PS project and HIDA.
