Progress doesn’t always move in straight lines. Sometimes it grows quietly, deep beneath the surface, until one day it changes the whole field. At VRF, we’ve learned to trust that kind of slow, steady growth — the kind that lasts.

That’s why this year, we’re stepping back from the Incyte Ingenuity Awards. Not because the program isn’t valuable — it is — but because we’re focused on the long game we were built for.

We also chose to wait until after the October 31 deadline to say this. We wanted other organizations to make their own choices without feeling influenced by ours. The Awards deserve a clean, fair round.

For the record, VRF has made it into the second round — semi-finals and finals — every year we’ve applied. We’ve seen the process up close and hold it in high regard. But it’s also clear that a thoughtful look at the program’s goals and past winners tells you whether you’re a fit — and we’ve concluded this year isn’t our moment to compete.

Our work at VRF lives on a different timescale. We build the digital and scientific backbone that keeps the whole field moving forward — the invisible systems and tools that take years to create but make everything else possible. That’s where our strength lies.

The Ingenuity Awards, on the other hand, support community and advocacy projects that make a visible difference in a single year. Those efforts matter deeply. They change lives close-up. But they’re simply not where we can make the biggest impact right now.

If you look back, you can see what this long-term approach has built so far.

• Peer-reviewed publications and editorials  that reshape how the field thinks about vitiligo.
• Small research grants we awarded years ago that have grown into pillars of today’s vitiligo R&D.
• A traveling Master Class on Vitiligo that brought vitiligo training to doctors in underserved areas.

And World Vitiligo Day — a global platform that now reaches millions across continents and has drawn more than fifty biotech companies into the vitiligo field. This transformation, well documented in scientific literature, helped pave the way for the world’s first vitiligo-specific drug.

None of this happened in a year. It took time, structure, and a stubborn kind of patience.

Grassroots work and structural work both matter. One builds connection and awareness; the other builds the scaffolding that keeps those connections standing. Progress needs both — the spark and the structure. But over time, communities thrive when they build their own scaffolding — the systems of strength that last — rather than wait for someone else to design them.

We are grateful for Incyte’s ongoing commitment to the vitiligo community and wish this year’s participants every success.

For us, the focus remains clear: building the tools and connections that last — expanding vitiligo.ai, strengthening global research ties, and developing the digital backbone that links patients, physicians, and scientists worldwide.

Yan Valle

Professor h.c., CEO VR Foundation