The first three clinical scholarships are awarded. The purpose is to create improved research opportunities for research physicians who treat patients.

The Hagedorn Prize is awarded for the 25th time to Leif Mosekilde, dr.med.

The Danish Society for Internal Medicine established the Hagedorn Prize, which is conferred at the Society’s annual conference to recognise excellent research or development efforts within internal medicine.

Although the Novo Nordisk Foundation has its own Board, in the first few years after the merger, the executive management of Novo Nordisk A/S, with Mads Øvlisen at the helm, carries out the administrative tasks of the Foundation. Eventually the tasks become too demanding, and the Board decides to establish an independent administration with its own director and offices in Bagsværd. Ulrik V. Lassen is appointed Director of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and steps down as research director of Novo Nordisk A/S.

Niels Steensens Hospital and Hvidøre Hospital merge to create the Steno Diabetes Center using the Steno buildings in Gentofte, north of Copenhagen. The Novo Nordisk Foundation is obligated to support and maintain a research hospital in accordance with the Articles of Association.

Having awarded grants for 5 years from 1988 to nurses to pursue further clinical and professional education, the nursing field becomes a permanent grant area for the Foundation with the creation of the Committee on Nursing Research in 1996. The Committee awards funds for clinical nursing research in Denmark. The picture shows research nurse Lene Poulsen with the Middle Eastern group in a project for ethnic minority children and adolescents with diabetes in 2001.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation moves to its own offices in a house in Gentofte that Hans Christian Hagedorn had acquired in 1935 for his second-in-command, Ingrid Wodstrup. Following her retirement in 1970, the senior hospital physicians at Niels Steensens Hospital live in the house.

Professor Erkki Ruoslathi receives the Jacobæus Prize (then known as the H.C. Jacobæus Lecture of the Nordisk Insulin Foundation) and gives a lecture in Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland.

The Prize promotes medical research and is awarded annually to a distinguished international researcher, who is invited to give a lecture on his or her research.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation establishes a wholly owned subsidiary, Novo A/S, to manage the Foundation’s endowment. The company is both the Foundation’s investment company and holding company for Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S, which is established the following year. The Novo Group is created, covering the three companies and their subsidiaries.