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LEO Foundation

Catalog
Healthcare/Research Denmark Website

About

LEO Foundation is a Danish enterprise foundation driving progress for people living with skin diseases through ownership, philanthropy and investments. The foundation helps pave the way for curing skin diseases by being an engaged owner of the pharmaceutical company LEO Pharma and one of the world's largest private funders of independent skin research. It provides philanthropic grants to research that pioneer new discoveries and transform understanding and treatment of the skin and its diseases. Through responsible investments, the foundation secures its ability to fuel long-term progress.

Funding Opportunities

Serendipity Grants

With the Serendipity Grants, the LEO Foundation seeks to enable active grantees to perform explorative investigations of novel and unexpected, serendipitous, ideas or discoveries that have emerged as a consequence of investigations performed during a current LEO Foundation-funded project. The discovery or idea should be outside the scope of the original project and may even reside outside the primary research focus of the grantee. The discovery or idea should be at an early stage of maturity where it would be unlikely to receive support via other LEO Foundation funding instruments. A Serendipity Grant can last for up to two years and has a limit of DKK 4 million, including administrative costs. The Serendipity Grants program is announced once a year in open competition.

Active
May 21, 2026 research

LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships

The LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships program aims to support promising, emerging research leaders with ambitions to establish or expand an independent research group at a Danish institution, and to pursue novel and important research questions within skin and skin diseases. Grants of DKK 12 million are awarded for a five-year period to eligible candidates who have between two and eight years of research experience since completing their PhD degree. The program is announced once a year in open competition. Previous years' Fellowship calls have included specific research themes, but in 2025 there are no thematic requirements. The LEO Foundation expects to award up to five Fellowships this year. The fellowship is named after Dr.h.c. Knud E. Abildgaard (1901-1986), who established the LEO Foundation in 1984 and was the owner of LEO Pharma.

Active
Mar 19, 2026 research

LEO Foundation Awards

The LEO Foundation Awards recognize outstanding young scientists from around the world whose work represents an extraordinary contribution to skin research and has the potential to pave the way for new and improved treatments for skin diseases. The award was born out of the aim of advancing the understanding and treatment of skin diseases and strengthening the pipeline of excellent dermatology researchers. It recognizes promising young talents and hopefully provides a boost to their future careers. Three awards are made each year, one in each of the regions: Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Asia-Pacific. Each award is worth USD 100,000. Since the first LEO Foundation Award in 2008, around 40 scientists have received the award. The award is well aligned with the Foundation's goal of continually promoting and advancing skin research.

Open
research

At a Glance

Total Funding Opportunities
6
Active Now
3
Source Domain
leo-foundation.org

Catalog Data

This funder profile was automatically extracted from grant listings. Information may be incomplete.

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