Three science-award recipients based in New York City have pledged US$3 million of their prize money to set up an endowment to fund awards for postdoctoral researchers. Charles Sawyers of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and Lewis Cantley of Weill Cornell Medical College last year each won $3-million 'Breakthrough' prizes. The new Tri-Institutional Breakout Awards for Junior Investigators will offer three to six $25,000 awards per year. The endowment founders say they are donating part of their prizes because they believe that postdocs will benefit more from the support. “For me, a prize at that stage of my career would have been really helpful,” says Bargmann, who adds that postdocs do much of the most creative work in science. Inaugural winners will be announced by the end of the year.