The Materials Today Agents of Change Awards

The Materials Today Agents of Change (MTAOC) awards program provides two grants of up to $10,000 bi-annually to initiatives and programs that foster a more inclusive and diverse research environment in the materials science community.

Jointly funded by the Materials Today Family of journals and the Elsevier Foundation, the awards demonstrate Materials Today’s long-term commitment to creating a more equitable workplace for materials scientists. We believe that a robust and diverse research community serves as a solid foundation for scientific advances in the field.

Criteria for consideration & judging

The Materials Today Family of journals team will review all Contest Entries submitted during the Contest Period and will select a shortlist of top Nominees by applying the following judging criteria to each Contest Entry:

• An overview of the initiative - what it intends to achieve and what it has achieved so far (if applicable)

• Key need the initiative addresses (incl. any data and/or initial insights sources used to identify the need)

• Target audience

• How the award money would help to support the initiative

• Proposed budget

• Proposed timeline for implementation

• A sustainability plan outlining how the project will continue beyond the initial grant (incl. data sources and/or initial insights that will be used to evaluate the initiative)

• A supporting statement from a nominator outlining the potential impact of the initiative and why the grant of the award would be significant for the initiative.

The Contest Entries of the shortlist of top Nominees will then be reviewed by the panel of judges opens in new tab/window using the criteria listed above.

Meet the 2024 MTAOC winners

The BioProducts Institute (BPI) at the University of British Columbia is launching the Indigenous Outreach Program, which aims to foster connections with Indigenous communities and integrate Indigenous knowledge into biobased innovation. The program focuses on increasing Indigenous youth participation in STEM by addressing systemic barriers through two key annual events: a two-day Outreach Program for Indigenous high-school students, bringing in 10–20 Indigenous students from remote communities to BPI for lab tours, hands-on workshops, mentorship, and the Half-Day Gathering during BPI’s Community Day, a collaborative event where Indigenous leaders, researchers, students, and stakeholders engage in mutual learning. This award will the support the transportation, accommodation, meals, lab tours and workshops costs laying the groundwork for lasting partnerships with Indigenous communities.

We are deeply honored to receive the 2025 Agents of Change award from the Elsevier Foundation and Materials Today. This recognition underscores our commitment to empowering Indigenous youth through hands-on STEM experiences and mentorship, fostering their voices and perspectives in the future of biobased materials innovation. By creating inclusive pathways, we aim to inspire the next generation of Indigenous leaders, whose knowledge and contributions are essential to shaping a more sustainable and diverse scientific community.

- Orlando Rojas

BME UNITE is a movement founded in 2020 to enhance racial and ethnic diversity in academia, now comprising around 480 faculty members nationwide. Its first major initiative brought attention to racial funding disparities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), highlighted in the Cell Press (2021) paper “Fund Black Scientists”, and led to the creation of the Genentech Research Awards Program, which provides funding to underrepresented minority BME faculty.

BME UNITE has partnered with the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) to help fellows prepare for the Meet-the-Faculty Candidate Session, which connects faculty candidates with department chairs and hiring committees. However, many fellows lack the financial resources to attend BMES meetings. This award will support conference registration and travel costs, increasing the program’s impact and supporting fellows' transitions into faculty roles.

Meet the 2023 MTAOC winners

This award will support undergraduate and graduate students from Latin America and Ecuadorian Universities to participate in the fifth edition of the Nano-Science Summer School@Yachay (NSSY24). The event, which will feature talks by world-class scientists, will be held on the Galapagos Islands for the third year running: a deliberate choice due to the location’s historical significance in the advancement of modern science. The hope is to continue expanding the school and establish its reputation as a prominent annual gathering for a diverse range of students.

In many social settings, mental health is still considered a taboo topic. For example, according to Dr Chaudhary, in the scientific community, researchers are often expected to maintain a stoic demeanour. To combat this, he started the Happy Mental Health Club in October 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown. The club showcases the diverse talents of materials science students and addresses mental health stigma through online sessions and international conferences. There is a particular emphasis on supporting underrepresented groups and breaking down social barriers to gender and LGBTQIA++ equality in research. The MTAOC award supports the running of the Happy Mental Health Club, along with awareness programs.

Meet the 2019 MTAOC winners

Lanell Williams | Harvard University

Project: The Women+ of Color Project (WOCP)

The Women+ of Color Project (WOCP) was born out of the need to see more Black, Native/Indigenous, Latina/x women+ in academia especially in STEM fields like Math, Physics, Materials Science, Planetary Science, or any other physical science disciplines. WOCP provides an online classroom focused solely on how to apply to graduate school and what admissions committees are looking for, providing resources to women+ of color who may not have access to this information.

Prof. Dr Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser, Prof. Alke Fink and Dr Sofía Martín Caba | Université de Fribourg, Switzerland

Project: Professional role confidence of female scientists

The three awardees have observed throughout their career that female researchers often face a major hurdle when it comes to making the first step onto the academic ladder and rising further up in the hierarchy later on – a lack of professional role confidence. The Professional role confidence of female scientists initiative was established to develop a series of events to overcome this impediment to success, with the vision to help implement a true culture of gender equality and to achieve a real gender balance among the next generation of materials scientists.