| Balzan Prize | |
|---|---|
 Balzan Prize 2017 ceremony in Bern | |
| Awarded for | Achievements in the natural sciences, humanities and culture |
| Country | Switzerland |
| First awarded | 1961 |
| Website | http://www.balzan.com/  |
The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man.
The assets behind the foundation were established by the Italian Eugenio Balzan(it) (1874–1953), a part-owner of Corriere della Sera who had invested his assets in Switzerland and in 1933 had left Italy in protest against fascism. He left a substantial inheritance to his daughter Angela Lina Balzan (1892–1956), who at the time was suffering an incurable disease. Before her death, she left instructions for the foundation and since then it has two headquarters, the Prize administered from Milan, the Fund from Zurich.
The first award was in fact one million Swiss francs to the Nobel Foundation in 1961. After 1962, a gap of 16 years followed when prizes recommenced with an award of half a million Swiss francs to Mother Teresa. Award ceremonies alternate between Bern and the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, and frequently winners have later won a Nobel Prize.
All awards are decided by a single committee. The Balzan Prize committee comprises twenty members of the prestigious learned societies of Europe.
Each year the foundation chooses the fields eligible for the next year's prizes, and determines the prize amount. These are generally announced in May, with the winners announced the September the following year. [1] [2]
Since 2001 the prize money has increased to 1 million Swiss Francs per prize, [1] [2] on condition that half the money is used for projects involving young researchers.
As of 2017, the amount of each of the four Balzan Prizes is now 750,000 Swiss francs (approx. €760,000; $750,000; £660,000). [3]
Four prizes have been awarded annually since 1978. The award fields vary each year and can be related to either a specific or an interdisciplinary field. The prizes go beyond the traditional subjects both in the humanities (literature, the moral sciences and the arts) and in the sciences (medicine and the physical, mathematical and natural sciences), with an emphasis on innovative research.
In different fields the prize is considered a significant prize, for example in sociology. [4]
Every 3 to 7 years the foundation also awards the Prize for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples. It was last awarded in 2014 to Vivre en Famille.
The Nobel Prizes are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist most famously known for the invention of dynamite. He died in 1896. In his will, he bequeathed all of his "remaining realisable assets" to be used to establish five prizes which became known as "Nobel Prizes". Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, are awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.
The Kyoto Prize is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of mankind". The Kyoto Prize was created in collaboration with the Nobel Foundation and is regarded by many as Japan's version of the Nobel Prize, representing one of the most prestigious awards available in fields that are not traditionally honored with a Nobel.
The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for "achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of nationality, race, colour, religion, sex or political views."
Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-laureate of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Jim Peebles and Didier Queloz, and the winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize and the 2015 Kyoto Prize.
John Franklin Enders was an American biomedical scientist and Nobel Laureate. Enders has been called "The Father of Modern Vaccines."
Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the twelve Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Nobel Foundation is a private institution founded on 29 June 1900 to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. The foundation is based on the last will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
Sir David Charles Baulcombe is a British plant scientist and geneticist. As of 2017 he is a Royal Society Research Professor. From 2007 to 2020 he was Regius Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He is a professor and the director emeritus of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California; and as a professor of anatomy at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Yamanaka is also a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).
Jules Alphonse Nicolas Hoffmann is a Luxembourg-born French biologist. During his youth, growing up in Luxembourg, he developed a strong interest in insects under the influence of his father, Jos Hoffmann. This eventually resulted in the younger Hoffmann's dedication to the field of biology using insects as model organisms. He currently holds a faculty position at the University of Strasbourg. He is a research director and member of the board of administrators of the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) in Strasbourg, France. He was elected to the positions of Vice-President (2005-2006) and President (2007-2008) of the French Academy of Sciences. Hoffmann and Bruce Beutler were jointly awarded a half share of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity,". [More specifically, the work showing increased Drosomycin expression following activation of Toll pathway in microbial infection.]
Martin Lee Chalfie is an American scientist. He is University Professor at Columbia University. He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". He holds a PhD in neurobiology from Harvard University.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry which consists of five members elected by the Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
James Patrick Allison is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
Robert Eric Betzig is an American physicist who works as a professor of physics and professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a senior fellow at the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia.
Paul Reuter (1911–1990) was "one of the twentieth century's greatest specialists on international law" and the principal architect of the legal framework for the European Coal and Steel Community, the first in a series of institutions that would ultimately become the European Union.
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|