Abstract
The International Headache Society (IHS) has announced the launch of the annual Jes Olesen Awards. Two awards will be granted each year, recognising outstanding original contributions in each of clinical and basic science research. Submissions for the first round are now open, and will close on 28 February 2025. Guidelines are available here (1).
Each award is a prize of €10,000, public recognition on Cephalalgia and IHS platforms, and an opportunity to present at the biennial IHC meeting. For this first round, the awards include invitations to present each winning entry at the 22nd International Headache Congress in São Paulo, Brazil (10–13 September 2025), with complimentary conference registration and stipends for travel and accommodation.
The scope of the awards
The field of headache medicine has witnessed enormous advances in the past five decades. Professor Jes Olesen has been at the forefront of many of these (more on this below), but he is only too aware that much more awaits discovery, interpretation and translation into benefits for people with headache. Professor Olesen has advocated throughout his professional life for increased funding for research in the fields of neurology and, more specifically, of headache medicine. As his own extraordinary career approaches a glorious sunset, it is typical of Professor Olesen that he now injects support into the research careers of others through these Awards for Advancement of Headache Medicine.
The two awards, one for basic and one for clinical science, are intended to foster research excellence in both areas, maintaining and potentiating the virtuous synergy between them that will lead us, eventually, to understand the neurobiology of migraine phases, to identify the multiple mediators of migraine attacks and, ultimately, to develop drugs that specifically target them.
Professor Jes Olesen: an appreciation
On the occasion of the first round of these awards, it is our distinct honour, and great pleasure, to portray and express our and the Society's appreciation of Jes Olesen, a visionary innovator, impelled throughout a long and superlative career by indomitable determination and boundless energy.
Jes's research record has been extraordinary in both its depth and the broadness of its scope. His academic achievements have been stellar, advancing science and medicine in different areas of neurology, but especially headache. For evidence of these, if it be needed, simply take a look at the great array of prestigious honours and awards Jes has received over the years, sometimes several in a year, culminating with the Brain Prize from the Lundbeck Foundation in 2021 (Table 1). Look, also, at the honorary positions Jes has held in neurological national and international societies (Table 2), which not only recognise his eminence in the headache field, but also are testament to his enduring willingness to give of himself to it.
Professor Jes Olesen: honours and awards.
Honorary positions held by Professor Jes Olesen.
Jes has transformed how headache is perceived by scientists, by the lay community, by clinicians and by political decision makers, working relentlessly, exploiting all possible channels, dedicating himself to laboratory research, epidemiology, seminal neuroimaging studies, clinical studies, advocacy, political lobbying initiatives and more, leaving not a single stone unturned to improve the science and standing of headache in the world. Along the way, Jes co-founded the European Federation of Neurological Societies (now part of the European Academy of Neurology), co-founded the European Federation of Neurological Associations, founded the European Brain Council and founded the Danish Headache Centre. These prodigious achievements are a matter of record and are widely recognised as pillars of his huge legacy to neuroscience. What is not on record, and not now well known, is that Jes is the founding father of IHS as it now exists. Jes became president of IHS in 1993. Despite that there had been six presidents before him, IHS was then a relatively small, informal club, without a written constitution and with no legal existence. When he stood down, two years later, IHS had been transformed into an incorporated charity, in much the same form as it is in today. With this came status as a legal entity, as well as the power (and foresight under Jes's presidency) to purchase and take ownership of Cephalalgia, a leading journal that IHS still owns.
Arguably his greatest contribution to headache has been Jes's astral work in shaping the modern classification of headache disorders. Begun several years earlier, in 1988, this led to publication of what is now known as the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 1st edition (ICHD-I). It has largely faded from memory that, prior to ICHD-I, the headache literature was in disordered confusion, built upon flimsy foundations with no agreed definitions and certainly no widely accepted diagnostic criteria for migraine, tension-type headache or any other of the 200+ headache disorders that we now recognise. Jes went on to lead the IHS Classification Committee to publish ICHD-II in 2004 (a major evolution of ICHD-I), ICHD-3 beta in 2013 and ICHD-3, the version in use today, in 2018, exactly 30 years after ICHD-I. Thanks to this long but unfading endeavour, there now exists over 35 years’ worth of meaningful and useful headache literature.
In the early to mid-1990s, Jes, as president of IHS, established and nurtured contacts at the World Health Organization in Geneva. It was with these contacts that dialogue was commenced in 1996, which led, eventually, to the establishment of the Global Campaign against Headache and its formal launch in Copenhagen almost 21 years ago in March 2004. Ever since, Jes has provided solid support to the Campaign whenever and however it was needed, making possible much of what the Campaign can claim to have achieved in those years.
Jes founded the Danish Headache Centre in 2001. As a true maestro, over the ensuing years, he created a world-leading group of clinical and research headache experts by nurturing, mentoring, stimulating and promoting a stream of young initiates. For many years, Jes has been at the very top of the headache field, but never egoistically; in contrast, whoever has worked with Jes he has pulled up with him, justifiably fearless of being eclipsed. There are very many whose personal careers have flourished because of Jes's support. As one result, the Danish Headache Centre and those who work there are a radiant example of how motivation, dedication, teaching and networking can change the present and will shape the future of headache.
All along the path he has explored, Jes has achieved success. As a true Viking hero, he has fought for most of his life to give headache the place it deserves within neurology, combining pragmatism and foresight in a perfect mix. Sometimes, he has been quite assertive in his determination to achieve his goals, but he has always been generous towards those who were walking the path alongside him. His often well-hidden kindness of heart has created a network of clinicians, scientists and friends that has surmounted all possible barriers and survived across decades. I (CT) well remember the creative discussions between Jes and Professor Giuseppe Nappi, which ended always in a genial project proposal, notwithstanding a significant linguistic barrier!
It is most befitting that these awards will recognise outstanding contributions in both basic and clinical science research (1).
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
