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Category: Social and Charitable Causes

Arts & Culture
July 16, 2026
Noga Erez Turns Turmoil Into Art

The documentary Noga, which premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival, follows Israeli musician Noga Erez at a defining moment in her life and career. Directed by Jono and Benji Bergmann, the film traces Erez’s work and relationship with her partner and collaborator, Ori Rousso, as they record, tour, and build an international audience. The October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza transform the course of the film, bringing grief, uncertainty, online abuse, cultural boycotts, and pressure to take public positions into their creative and personal lives. Even as those pressures intensify, Erez and Rousso continue making music and performing, using their work to process events around them while sustaining a demanding partnership. Supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, with Leonard Blavatnik serving as Executive Producer, Noga examines the intertwined questions of art, politics, identity, and responsibility.

Arts & Culture
July 15, 2026
Brian Cox and UK’s Third-Richest Man Back Exiled Russian’s Edinburgh Fringe Crime Thriller

The Blavatnik Family Foundation is supporting DRONE, a new multimedia crime thriller appearing at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Written and directed by Dmitry Melkin and performed by Gladstone Mahib, the one-person production explores artificial intelligence, desire, betrayal, and the changing boundary between people and machines. The Foundation’s support is helping Melkin, who left Russia because of his opposition to the war in Ukraine, return to the Fringe for the first time since presenting the critically acclaimed The Forest in 2019. The production also reflects longstanding connections within the international theatre community. Mahib trained at the Moscow Art Theatre, where actor Brian Cox taught exchange students, and his son, Alan Cox, will make a guest appearance.

Arts & Culture
July 9, 2026
William Boyd Wins Give a Book: The Pleasure of Reading Prize 2026

Novelist William Boyd has been named the winner of the 2026 Give a Book: The Pleasure of Reading Prize, which is sponsored by Bloomsbury Publishing and supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation. The annual prize recognizes an English-language author whose work brings pleasure to readers and celebrates the wider value of reading in public life. Boyd, the author of nineteen novels as well as short stories and screenplays, was selected by a panel of judges that included guest judge Esther Freud. The prize includes £10,000, shared between the winning author and a charitable Give a Book project chosen by the recipient, often supporting reading in prisons, schools, or other community settings. By linking literary recognition with direct support for reading access, the prize reflects Give a Book’s mission to use books to teach, inspire, and change lives. The Foundation’s support helps advance the role of literature in widening opportunity, strengthening imagination, and fostering a lifelong love of reading.

Scientific Research
July 8, 2026
Evogene and Tel Aviv University’s Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery Announce Joint Initiative to Accelerate AI-Driven Small-Molecule Drug Discovery

Evogene and Tel Aviv University’s Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery have announced a strategic initiative to accelerate AI-driven small-molecule drug discovery emerging from Israel’s academic research ecosystem. Facilitated by Ramot, Tel Aviv University’s technology transfer company, the collaboration is designed to support researchers and scientific entrepreneurs working on novel disease targets. The initiative combines the Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery’s experimental infrastructure and translational drug discovery capabilities with Evogene’s computational chemistry platform, including its ChemPass AI™ generative engine. Selected projects will receive support through an integrated design, make, test, and analyze workflow intended to help move promising biological insights toward viable drug development programs. By bringing together academic science, experimental validation, and AI-enabled molecule design, the collaboration addresses a critical gap in early-stage therapeutic innovation. The initiative reflects the Blavatnik Center’s mission to advance pioneering medical research from the laboratory toward potential patient benefit.

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Discover the cutting-edge science we fund

Providing many of the world's best researchers, scientists, and universities with support, and funding to discover breakthroughs that solve humankind's greatest challenges.

See how we support great cultural institutions around the world

The Foundation contributes to renowned institutions that showcase the breadth of arts and culture, including performance, exhibition and education.

Visit the Blavatnik Archive

The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating materials that contribute to the study of 20th-century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia.

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