R&D 100

Solar arrays have been standard spacecraft hardware for decades, but their tendency to flex can complicate maneuvers needing precision such as docking. To tame the wobble, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) developed PaSTA, a technology that can bring rigidity to deployable structures on spacecraft, thus enabling autonomous spacecraft docking operations. PaSTA also happens to be one…

The winners in the 2026 R&D 100 Awards Special Recognition categories have been announced by R&D World. The honorees were selected by an esteemed judging panel including over 50 well-respected industry professionals from across the world. These and other winners will be celebrated at the R&D 100 Awards Banquet in Scottsdale, Arizona on November 19th.  2026…

  R&D World has announced the winners of the 2026 R&D 100 Professional Awards. The list of 2026 winners follows, along with highlights from their nomination letters. These winners will be formally awarded at the R&D 100 Awards Banquet at the Hyatt Scottsdale, AZ on November 19, 2025. R&D Leader of the Year Kumar Sanketh, R&D…

Kumar Sanketh, R&D director of Functional Polymers product R&D within Packaging, Specialty Plastics and Hydrocarbons at Dow Inc., is the 2026 R&D 100 Leader of the Year. Sanketh leads a global product R&D organization of more than 110 employees at six sites across the Americas, Europe and China. He supports business portfolios that drive more…

Cody Somers, lead technician at Kennametal, Inc., is the 2026 R&D 100 Technician of the Year. Having worked at the industrial technology and manufacturing company Kennametal since 2015, Somers has more than a decade of hands-on experience with tungsten carbide manufacturing processes. At Kennametal, Somers serves as a lead operator for multiple industrial-scale additive-manufacturing systems.…

National laboratories are the primary submitting organization on 51 of this year’s 100 R&D 100 Award winners, with Oak Ridge alone accounting for 18. Companies account for 21. The 2026 winners, announced today by R&D World, were selected from 149 finalists across six categories, 38 of them in Process/Prototyping. This year’s judging panel included more…

A neutron detector built around abundant lithium instead of scarce helium-3, a battery made of heated sand, and software that spots the faint electrical arcing that starts wildfires. The three winners of the 2026 R&D 100 Special Recognition: Market Disruptor award, announced today by R&D World. Each listing includes the primary submitting organization, followed by…

A carbon converter that projects formic acid at $0.60 per kilogram, a freight rail simulator released for free, and a sensor that can tell how much of a plastic bottle used to be a plastic bottle. The three winners of the 2026 R&D 100 Special Recognition: Corporate Social Responsibility award, announced today by R&D World,…

The Special Recognition: Green Tech winners for the 2026 R&D 100 Awards have been announced by R&D World. Now in its 64th year, the global science and innovation competition drew a similarly global judging panel of more than 50 industry professionals. All three winners this year target the thermal and carbon load of the built…

A total of 149 Finalists for the 2026 R&D 100 Awards have been announced by R&D World. Now in its 64th year, the global science and innovation competition drew entries from eight countries. A similarly global judging panel featured more than 50 industry professionals. Of the 149 Finalists, 76, or 51%, named at least one…

This year’s R&D 100 Awards’ grand reveal is coming up quickly. The dates for the various category announcements have now been set. All announcements will first appear here, at R&D World’s website, on the following dates: Friday, July 30th — R&D 100 Finalists Monday, August 3rd — Special Recognition: Green Tech Winners Tuesday, August 4th…

This year’s iteration of the esteemed R&D 100 Awards features a judging panel comprised of professionals from across the globe, who boast an impressive collection of accomplishments and honors. Finalists in this year’s 64th R&D 100 Awards will be announced at rdworldonline.com. Winners of this year’s R&D 100 Awards, along with the medalists in the…

Still interested in entering the 2026 R&D 100 Awards this year? The final deadline to submit nominations for the 2026 R&D 100 Awards is 11:59 p.m. Friday, June 5, 2026, Eastern (New York City) time. Entries submitted by the final deadline carry a submission fee of $595. The R&D 100 Awards recognize new commercial products,…

The 2026 R&D 100 Awards are now accepting submissions as of today, March 4th. Click here — or on the image at right — to download a PDF of the Call for Nominations. This year’s competition is the 64th, extending the long, proud history of the awards competition. The R&D 100 Awards is the only…

The official Call for Nominations for the 2026 R&D 100 Awards has been released. Click here — or on the image at right — to download a PDF of the Call for Nominations. This year’s competition, the 64th, will open for submissions on March 4th, 2026. The R&D 100 Awards is the only science and…

General Motors’ battery team, led by Director of Battery R&D George Cintra, walked away from the 2025 R&D 100 Awards with two battery-related honors as part of GM’s broader haul of four R&D 100 Awards. At the gala, Cintra described the ultra-fast charger, the GM XFC Cell, as a step toward EV charging that feels…

Richard Tapper, an Associate Research Specialist at Dow who develops and tests fire-retardant wire and cable formulations, accepted the 2025 R&D Technician of the Year award at the R&D 100 Awards gala in Scottsdale, Arizona. Tapper’s work spans household wiring to grid-scale solar infrastructure, where he pushes halogen-free polymer composites through increasingly stringent burn tests.…

Thomas Lograsso, director of the Critical Materials Innovation Hub at Ames National Laboratory, accepted the 2025 R&D Leader of the Year award with a speech that emphasized collaboration and investing in the next generation. “Science thrives on openness and collaboration,” Lograsso said. “We must continue to invest in research, share knowledge freely, and empower the…

Regenity Biosciences is tackling a long-overlooked challenge in orthopedic medicine. In this R&D 100 Award-winning interview, Natsuyo Shishido Lee (Director of R&D) and Chris Harris (Senior Integration Engineer) discuss RejuvaKnee—a purified, intact bovine meniscus implant made entirely of collagen, designed for segmental defects after partial meniscectomy. With no durable standard of care for years, the…

Thermo Fisher Scientific earned three 2025 R&D 100 Awards in the Analytical/Test category: the Stellar Mass Spectrometer, the KingFisher PlasmidPro Maxi Processor, and the SteriSEQ Rapid Sterility Testing Kit. According to Thermo Fisher, the Stellar Mass Spectrometer delivers 10x greater sensitivity while analyzing five times more compounds than traditional systems. The KingFisher PlasmidPro Maxi Processor…

Filmed at the 63rd R&D 100 Awards in Scottsdale, Arizona, this quick interview spotlights the team behind the Energy Storing and Efficient Air Conditioner (ESEAC), an R&D 100 Award winning approach to commercial cooling that builds energy storage directly into the HVAC system. ESEAC was developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and is…

Winner of an R&D 100 Award, the Universal GridEdge Analyzer (UGA) is a portable, high-speed device built to help utilities see what’s happening on the power grid in real time. Designed to move from site to site, UGA can “listen” to electrical waveforms on feeders serving neighborhoods and major loads, including solar, EV chargers, and…

Savannah River National Laboratory was awarded an R&D 100 Award for its advanced engineered cellular magmatics technology, a progression of traditional foam glass technology that can be tailored to suit a variety of applications, including: wastewater filtration, supplemental cementitious materials and biological delivery systems. Advanced engineered cellular magmatics (AECMs) are a material family that can…

Qnity’s UV 26GNF photoresist took home a 2025 R&D 100 Award in the Mechanical/Materials category for delivering what the semiconductor industry thought was still years away: a non-fluorine lithography material that actually improves performance. In this interview, Randal King, Qnity’s Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer, explains how a team of about 30 scientists accomplished in…

DuPont took home three 2025 R&D 100 Awards in the Mechanical/Materials category, one of the strongest showings for a commercial entity at the gala. At the awards ceremony, R&D World caught up with Khyati Vyas (technical lead, Tychem Garments), Allie Fletcher (end-use marketing lead, DuPont Personal Protection) and Caleb Funk (R&D laureate, DuPont Water Solutions)…