Eric K. Fernström’s Great Nordic Prize presented at Lund University to May-Britt and Edvard Moser for research on the brain’s spatial navigation system.
On 7 November 2008, May-Britt and Edvard Moser received Eric K. Fernström’s Great Nordic Prize at Lund University. The prize recognized their influential research on the brain’s spatial navigation system, particularly the discovery and characterization of grid cells in the entorhinal cortex.
The Fernström Great Nordic Prize is awarded to outstanding medical researchers from Nordic countries and is one of the most prestigious regional honors in biomedical science. By 2008, the Mosers’ work had demonstrated that grid cells form a hexagonal lattice of firing fields that provide an internal metric for space, fundamentally advancing theories of the cognitive map and spatial memory.
Historically, the prize highlighted the emergence of Nordic neuroscience as a major contributor to global brain research, with the Trondheim group at its forefront. For women’s history, Moser’s receipt of a high-profile Nordic medical research prize underscored the growing prominence of women scientists in disciplines traditionally dominated by male investigators. The award contributed to her broader recognition and helped secure continued support for the expanding research centers she was building, thereby influencing the infrastructure of European systems neuroscience.