Origin of the Foundation

When Professor André Simonart was conferred his emeritus title in 1969, his colleagues and friends organised a subscription in order to give him a gift.

Clinical pharmacology was only in its early stages at the time, and Professor André Simonart decided to use all of the donations he received to create a foundation which, through the regular awarding of a prize, aims to promote research conducted in the field of pharmacology at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), the universities where he had been a professor of medicine.

The Foundation was created by notarised deed on 15th May 1970 (Moniteur belge 18th February 1971) and recognised as a Public Utility Foundation by the Royal Decree of 8th December 1970 (Moniteur belge 19th December 1970).

Mission of the foundation

Encourage research in biomedical science that can advance clinical pharmacology among the present and former students of the Université Catholique de Louvain and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, through the granting of a substantial prize every 3 years

The founder

André Simonart was born in Louvain in 1903. Being the son and great grandson of doctors, he naturally studied medicine. In 1926, two years before graduating as a Doctor of Medicine from Université de Louvain with the highest honours, André Simonart published several articles with Professor Manille Ide. These early scientific activities earned him the University Competition Prize, the Travel Scholarship Competition Prize and the Quinquennial Prize for Therapeutic and Pharmacological Sciences from the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine.