Innovating for the health of all was the theme of the 2009 essay competition Young Voices in Research for Health jointly organized by the Geneva-based Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet.

The winners are Bianca Brijnath (Australia), Rebecca Lacroix (Sweden), Annia Martínez Massip (Cuba), Aina Palou Serra (Spain), Aakanksha Pande (India), Christian F. Rueda-Clausen (Colombia), Okezie Uba-Mgbenena (Nigeria) and Rafael Van den Bergh (Belgium).

Forty-one essays were shortlisted and are published in an anthology that you can access here. For their prize, the winners took part in Forum 2009 so as to put forward the opinions and experience of young researchers to the gathering.

The number of essays entered for the competition continues to grow: about 25% more entries were received this year than in 2008, almost equally from men and women. Out of the 415 entries, 14 were in French, 78 in Spanish and 323 in English. The essays came from young people of 75 nationalities.