The 2018 MERAC Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in New Technologies (Computational) is awarded to Dr Martin Pertenais (DLR, Germany) for a PhD thesis on cutting-edge concepts of compact polychromatic spectropolarimeters adapted to astrophysical space mission requirements in the UV domain.

The 2018 MERAC Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Observational Astrophysics is awarded to Dr Renske Smit (University of Cambridge, UK) for the observational characterisation of the physical properties of the galaxies that formed in the first billion years of cosmic time.

The 2018 MERAC Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Theoretical Astrophysics is awarded to Dr Sandrine Codis (IAP, France) for the study of the imprint of the large-scale structure of the Universe on galaxy formation and cosmology.