On   the   occasion   of   the   first   International   Conference   on   Noncovalent   Interactions   (ICNI-I) which was held in Lisbon in 2019, its International Advisory Board (IAB) has formally agreed on a proposal, from the Chairs of the Conference (Prof. Armando J. L. Pombeiro and Dr. Kamran T. Mahmudov), for the establishment of a prize, named the van der Waals Prize, to distinguish scientists of high scientific merit who have contributed in an outstanding way to the development of the field of Noncovalent Interactions in Science.

The van der Waals Prize was already awarded for the first time on the occasion of the ICNI-I(2019) to Prof. Pavel Hobza.

At ICNI-I, the IAB members further agreed that this Prize should distinguish a senior and a young (not older than 45 years) scientist in alternating years.

The van der Waals Prize for the young (for the first time) and senior scientists were awarded by IAB members to Prof. Alexander Tkatchenko and Prof. Giuseppe Resnati in 2020 and 2021, respectively, and presented during the ICNI-II (Strasbourg, 2022).

The prizes for the young (2022) and senior scientists (2023) have already been awarded by IAB members to Prof. Hongbo Zeng and Prof. Gautam R. Desiraju.  Both these distinctions will be presented to the awardees during the ICNI-III (Belgrade, June 2024).

The van der Waals Prize is sponsored by Analysis doo, Belgrade, Serbia.