Hippocrates initiative wins national award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts

The Hippocrates initiative was named winner of the Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts in the 2011 Times Higher Education awards, announced on 24th November 2011 in London. This award aims to recognise the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that is taking place in universities to promote the arts. 

Entries are now closed for the 2012 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine, which is for unpublished poems in English.  

The awards will be announced on 12th May 2012 at a symposium in London at the Wellcome Collection rooms on the Euston Road.

The Hippocrates poetry and medicine initiative was co-founded by clinical professor Donald Singer and poet and translator Michael Hulse, and has been supported by many organizations interested in medicine and the arts, including the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the Wellcome Trust, the University of Warwick's Institute for Advanced Study, the Cardiovascular Research Trust, and Heads, Teachers and Industry. 

In its first 3 years, the Hippocrates Awards have attracted over 4000 entries from 44 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.

With a 1st prize for the winning poem in each category of £5,000, the Hippocrates prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem. In each category there is also a 2^nd prize of £1,000, 3^rd  prize of £500, and 20 commendations each of £50.  

BBC broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney has joined New York poet and critic Marilyn Hacker and medical scientist Professor Rod Flower FRS to complete the judging panel for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine.

For more on the 2012 Hippocrates Awards and the Hippocrates initiative see my recent update.