The first recipients of the Kavli Prizes, awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters with the financial help of Fred Kavli's foundation, are seven scientists in the fields of neuroscience, astrophysics and nanotechnologies. They shared the above-mentioned three prizes worth $1 million each.

The first prize, that for neuroscience, was shared by Dr. Sten Grillner of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden; Thomas Jessell of Columbia University, and Dr. Pasko Rakic of Yale University. The prize for astrophysics was shared by Donald Lynden-Bell of Cambridge University and Maarten Schmidt of the California Institute of Technology for their research on quasars. The nanotechnology prize was shared by Louis Brus of Columbia and Sumio Iijima of Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan.

The Kavli Prizes, established this year, will be awarded every two years at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. There are currently three prizes, worth $1 million each: Astrophysics, Neuroscience, and Nanotechnology. Norwegian-American engineer Fred Kavli chose these three fields "from the biggest, to the smallest, to the most complex."

The prizes focus on younger people, whereas the Nobel prizes are usually awarded a long time after a certain discovery, thus mostly to older people, because the selection process involves looking at the actual results and impact of a certain discovery.

The prizes will be presented to the Kavli Laureates by HRH Crown Prince Haakon at an award ceremony in Oslo Concert Hall on the 9th of September 2008, the Kavli Foundation announced.

Kavli helmed the Kavlico Corporation, which grew to become one of the world's largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautic, automotive, and industrial applications. Fred Kavli sold Kavlico for $345 million to C-Mac Industries Inc., which resold it to French company Schneider Electric. His Kavli Foundation currently operates about 15 research institutes around the world, mostly in the United States.