"Discovering Worlds": Presidential Prize laureates for 2025 become new heroes of the project by the Russian Science Foundation and the National Centre RUSSIA
On the eve of the Day of Russian Science, the National Centre RUSSIA, together with the Russian Science Foundation, is expanding the project "Discovering Worlds", which highlights outstanding achievements of Russian scientists awarded the country’s highest state honours in science and technology.
The new heroes of the project are the laureates of the Presidential Prize in Science and Innovation for Young Scientists for 2025, who were awarded by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on 5 February 2026 in the Catherine Hall of the Kremlin. The digital exposition of the project now features new images from the award ceremony capturing the President’s meeting with young researchers. In addition, portraits and materials about the 2024 laureates have appeared on media screens in branches of the National Centre RUSSIA across the regions, including the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area and Krasnoyarsk region, allowing residents of different parts of the country to learn more about the achievements of Russian science.
The project "Discovering Worlds" is a vivid example of productive dialogue between science and art. Its implementation brought together the Working Group of the Russian Science Foundation on science museums and science popularisation centres, which ensured the expert depth and accuracy of the content, and the creative team of the National Centre RUSSIA. For example, the Art Directorate of the National Centre RUSSIA, led by Andrei Shelyutto, created a cohesive visual universe in which every detail — from the system of symbols to the portrait aesthetic — reveals science through the lives and ambitions of those who create it.
The laureates of the country’s highest award for young scientists are:
— Alexander Anikin and Pavel Moseyev, researchers at the Bochvar High-Technology Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, for creating beta-voltaic power sources for autonomous aerial systems and spacecraft;
— Dmitry Butylsky, researcher at Kuban State University, for developing membranes and membrane-based methods for selective ion separation and concentration for low-reagent technologies to extract lithium from natural waters and industrial solutions;
— Victoria Vedyushkina, Vladislav Kibkalo and Gleb Belozyorov, scientists at Lomonosov Moscow State University, for the discovery and study of generalised billiards and the topological modelling of Hamiltonian systems;
— Artem Isayev, researcher at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, for research into new systems of bacterial antiviral immunity.
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The idea of the project "Discovering Worlds" was proposed by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, during the award ceremony for the 2024 laureates:
"Through your own unconventional and unique solutions, it is necessary to create innovative products and thereby move forward and break ahead. Such leadership ambitions of our young researchers are one of the most important conditions for Russia’s scientific and technological excellence, which we must and will strive to achieve. This is precisely the goal we set for ourselves across a number of areas, and we want the entire country and the younger generation to know about your achievements and to take pride in Russian science.
In this regard, there is an idea to create a special exposition at the National Centre RUSSIA so that its visitors — both our citizens and international guests — can better familiarise themselves with the achievements of our laureates and with the best projects of young scientists of Russia."
The Art Directorate of the National Centre RUSSIA, led by Andrei Shelyutto, developed a graphic style featuring a system of symbols across nine fields: physics and space sciences, chemistry and materials science, biology and life sciences, fundamental research for medicine, agricultural sciences, Earth sciences, humanities and social sciences, engineering sciences, as well as mathematics, computer science and systems science. These are the areas in which the Russian Science Foundation conducts expert evaluation of submissions for the prize.
Portraits of the 2024 laureates for the project were created by photographer and member of the St Petersburg Union of Artists, Associate Professor at the Repin Academy of Arts, Stanislav Lutfy-Rakhmanov. The creative team drew inspiration from the aesthetics of the film "Nine Days of One Year" by Mikhail Romm, dedicated to the work of nuclear physicists.
"At every stage, ordinary people make decisions, while scientists strive to invent a system for making decisions. In this project, we follow their example. We are shaping not only the project’s identity, but also its aesthetic concept — designing a unified and all-encompassing system that operates almost automatically, yet remains manageable, traceable, adjustable and developable by the designer. Both graphically and organisationally, the system reflects the scientific style of the project and consolidates and automates a number of organisational and editorial processes," the project concept states.
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