Spotlight
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction unveiled its 2026 longlist today, Thursday 3rd September, featuring 13 remarkable books showcasing that all the best stories are true. This year’s longlist brings together vivid biographies and revelatory true stories, including of major literary figure James Baldwin, romance novelist and socialite Barbara Cartland, and eighteenth-century naturalist and explorer George Forster. Readers are also taken from the ancient world through the life of Alexander the Great to the famed Parisian Hôtel Lutetia during its wartime transformation. Other subjects include a range of historical investigations and first-hand accounts that illuminate conflict, power and identity, from Berlin during the Second World War, revolution in Syria and art, survival and resistance in wartime Ukraine, to espionage in Cold War Iran and the geopolitical mystery of Nord Stream. The longlist also explores the high-profile investigation surrounding French film icon Alain Delon, the tragic story of London teenager Zac Brettler, and offers an intimate portrait of Putin's Russia. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 4 November at an award ceremony at BMA House, generously supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The documentary film, Noga, will receive a free open-air screening in Kyiv on August 30 as part of the 17th Odesa International Film Festival. Directed by Jono and Benji Bergmann, executive produced by Len Blavatnik and supported by the Foundation, Noga follows Israeli musician Noga Erez and her partner and collaborator, Ori Rousso, over five years of creative work, international touring, and personal change. The October 7 attacks and the war that followed alter the course of the story, bringing questions of identity, artistic responsibility, and public pressure to the fore. The Kyiv presentation follows the film’s June 2026 world premiere at the Tribeca Festival and subsequent festival screenings in Munich, Jerusalem, and San Francisco.
The Blavatnik Family Foundation supports Mount Sinai’s work to advance organ-perfusion technology and related research designed to preserve donated organs, improve their viability, and expand access to transplantation. In this episode of Patient Innovations, hosts Rashmi Kandwal and Shannon Stauff bring together patient, clinical, and research perspectives on liver disease, organ donation, and the future of transplantation. Liver transplant recipient MacGregor Nestler reflects on his experience of serious illness, waiting for a donor organ, and rebuilding his life after transplantation. Dr. Bubu A. Banini of Yale School of Medicine and the American Liver Foundation discusses the varied causes of liver disease, the importance of early awareness, and the value of trusted support for patients and families. Dr. M. Zeeshan Akhtar of Mount Sinai’s Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute explores advances in machine perfusion and the emerging role of artificial intelligence in evaluating donated organs. The conversation highlights how research, technology, and public awareness can help increase the availability of viable organs and improve outcomes for transplant patients.
Time Out has highlighted Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation, a major free exhibition supported by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, opening at London’s Science Museum on October 23, 2026, to mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Spanning four decisive decades from the 1760s to the first U.S. presidency in the 1790s, the exhibition explores how science and technology shaped the land, peoples, and emerging identity of the United States. More than 100 maps, paintings, scientific instruments, and artifacts will illuminate the knowledge and experiences of Anglo-American colonists, Indigenous Americans, and enslaved and free people of African descent. Highlights include a rare surviving 1776 print of the Declaration, objects associated with King George III and George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering chart of the Gulf Stream.
Providing many of the world's best researchers, scientists, and universities with support, and funding to discover breakthroughs that solve humankind's greatest challenges.
The Foundation contributes to renowned institutions that showcase the breadth of arts and culture, including performance, exhibition and education.
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.
