Dušan Galusek Wins the ESET Science Award 2026!

We are proud to share some fantastic news! Professor Dušan Galusek, Director of the FunGlass Centre, has won the ESET Science Award 2026 in the category Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia!

The award was presented to Prof. Galusek on 15 October 2026 in Bratislava by Serge Haroche, the 2012 Nobel Prize laureate in Physics, who chaired this year’s international jury. Prof. Galusek was selected as the winner from five finalists in his category, with 15 outstanding scientists nominated across the three award categories.

The ESET Science Award recognises scientists whose work advances knowledge, raises the international profile of Slovak research and contributes to society. The evaluation criteria include significant scientific publications, citations in recognised journals and participation in major international research projects, alongside the wider impact of scientific work.

The ESET Science Award is an initiative of the ESET Foundation, established in cooperation with ESET, a Slovak technology company best known for its cybersecurity solutions. Through the award, the Foundation supports and celebrates outstanding scientific achievements, helping to raise the profile of Slovak science and highlight its importance to society.

Exploring new frontiers in materials science

Although Prof. Galusek actively contributes to research projects led by his colleagues, he is currently focusing on two particularly promising research directions.

One is high-entropy oxide materials – materials containing several different components that can form a single stable phase rather than separating into multiple phases. While the concept has been extensively explored in metal alloys, high-entropy oxides remain a less widely studied field. They offer exciting opportunities for fundamental research and potential applications, including thermal barrier coatings for turbines to improve their efficiency and heat-resistant materials for applications such as spacecraft heat shields.

His second research direction explores the low-temperature processing of bioactive glasses using cold sintering. Conventional sintering often requires high temperatures, which can cause glass to crystallise and lose some of its bioactivity – a key property for materials designed to interact with living tissue. Cold sintering uses water or aqueous solutions to enable densification at much lower temperatures. Prof. Galusek and his team are investigating whether this approach can be applied to bioactive glasses to produce porous structures for bone implants while preserving their ability to support biological processes.

Both research directions reflect the team’s interest in understanding the behaviour of advanced materials and exploring new possibilities for their practical use.

From ceramics to building an international research centre

Prof. Galusek’s path to science was not entirely straightforward. Although he initially dreamed of studying archaeology, he eventually graduated in inorganic chemistry from the Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. He first established his expertise in ceramics and later turned his attention to glass research at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

His career also took him to Germany and the United Kingdom before bringing him back to his hometown of Trenčín. In 2017, he founded FunGlass, which has since developed into an internationally connected research centre bringing together scientists, partners and young researchers to advance functional and surface-functionalised glass and related materials.

As Director, Prof. Galusek has helped create an environment where international collaboration, scientific excellence and the development of new research talent go hand in hand.

A proud moment for FunGlass

This award is a wonderful recognition of Prof. Galusek’s scientific achievements, curiosity and leadership. It also celebrates the collaborative research community that he has helped build at FunGlass.

We are delighted to celebrate this well-deserved achievement with our Director!
Congratulations, Professor Galusek, on this outstanding success. We wish you continued inspiration and many more exciting discoveries in the years ahead!