Körber European Science Award
Encyclopedia
The Körber European Science Prize is presented annually by the Körber Foundation in Hamburg
honoring outstanding scientists working in Europe
for their promising research projects. With the 750,000 euro prize money research projects in life and physical sciences are promoted.
, Reimar Lüst, the entrepreneur and founder Kurt A. Körber
developed 1984 a prize using the means of science to overcome the boundaries in a divided Europe. At the beginning cooperation projects of European research teams were honored. Since 2005, only single persons living and doing research in Europe are dignified aiming to keep the best brains in Europe. Payment of the funds associated with the award is also tied to the criterion that the prizewinner does not move out of Europe during this period.
and physical sciences respectively. Those who are shortlisted are then asked to submit a detailed proposal for a research project which is then judged in two rounds of assessment by the Search Committee. The work of the Search Committee is supported by international experts. A maximum of five candidates are subsequently recommended to the Trustee Committee which, based on a summary of expert assessments, previous publications and scientific career history, decides on the new prizewinner. A personal application is not allowed.
in the presence of the Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and 600 guests from science, industry, politics, and society.
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
honoring outstanding scientists working in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
for their promising research projects. With the 750,000 euro prize money research projects in life and physical sciences are promoted.
History
Together with the president of the Max Planck SocietyMax Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....
, Reimar Lüst, the entrepreneur and founder Kurt A. Körber
Kurt A. Körber
Kurt A. Körber was a German founder and businessman, who founded the Hauni Maschinenbau AG, an internationally leading company for the production of machines for the tobacco industry and the Körber Foundation , both based in Hamburg, Germany...
developed 1984 a prize using the means of science to overcome the boundaries in a divided Europe. At the beginning cooperation projects of European research teams were honored. Since 2005, only single persons living and doing research in Europe are dignified aiming to keep the best brains in Europe. Payment of the funds associated with the award is also tied to the criterion that the prizewinner does not move out of Europe during this period.
Selection process
Renowned scientists from all over Europe, grouped into two Search Committees, select promising candidates. In alternate years, suitable individuals are sought from the field of life sciencesLife sciences
The life sciences comprise the fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms, like plants, animals, and human beings. While biology remains the centerpiece of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of...
and physical sciences respectively. Those who are shortlisted are then asked to submit a detailed proposal for a research project which is then judged in two rounds of assessment by the Search Committee. The work of the Search Committee is supported by international experts. A maximum of five candidates are subsequently recommended to the Trustee Committee which, based on a summary of expert assessments, previous publications and scientific career history, decides on the new prizewinner. A personal application is not allowed.
Prize money
All prizewinners receive a certificate and 750,000 euro prize money. The prizewinners are obligated to use the prize money for research activities within three years and have the freedom to decide alone how the funds are employed. Ten percent of the prize money are free for private purposes.Presentation
The Körber European Science Prize is presented every year in the Great Hall of Hamburg City HallHamburg Rathaus
The Hamburg Rathaus is the Rathaus—the city hall or town hall—of Hamburg, Germany, it is the seat of the government of Hamburg, located in the Altstadt quarter in the city centre, near the lake Binnenalster and the central station...
in the presence of the Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and 600 guests from science, industry, politics, and society.
Winners
- 1985: Applications of Shock Waves in Medicine, Walter Brendel, Michael Delius, Georg Enders, Joseph Holl, Gustav Paumgartner, Tilman Sauerbruch
- 1985: Back Pressure Casting Technology, Teodor Balevski, Rumen Batschvarov, Emil Momtschilov, Dragan Nenov, Rangel Zvetkov
- 1986: Retrovirus Research (AIDSAIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
), Jean-Claude Gluckman, Sven Haahr, George Janossy, David Klatzmann, Luc MontagnierLuc MontagnierLuc Antoine Montagnier is a French virologist and joint recipient with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus...
, Paul Rácz - 1987: Further Development of Electron HolographyElectron holographyElectron holography is holography with electron waves. Dennis Gabor invented holography in 1948 when he tried to improve resolution in electron microscope. The first attempts to perform holography with electron waves were made by Haine and Muley in 1952; they demonstrated recorded with 60keV...
, Karl-Heinz Herrmann, Friedrich Lenz, Hannes Lichte, Gottfried Möllenstedt - 1987: Creating Ultralow Temperatures, Riitta Hari, Matti Krusius, Olli V. Lounasmaa, Martti Salomaa
- 1988: Extending the Hamburg Pyrolytic Technique to Destroy Toxic Wastes, Alfons Buekens, Vasilij Dragalov, Walter KaminskyWalter KaminskyWalter Kaminsky is a German chemist. His research dwells in olefin polymerization, and also in plastic recycling. He discovered the high activity of Group 4 metallocene/methylaluminoxane mixtures as catalysts for olefin polymerization in 1980.He was awarded, among other prizes, the 1999 Benjamin...
, Hansjörg Sinn - 1989: Active Substances from Plant Cell Cultures, Christian Brunold, Yury Y. Gleba, Lutz Nover, J. David Phillipson, Elmar Weiler, Meinhart H. Zenk
- 1990: Forecasting Short-Term Changes in Climate, Lennart BengtssonLennart BengtssonLennart Bengtsson, born 1935, is a meteorologist currently interested in global climate modelling, global water vapour distribution and measurement of atmospheric water using GPS....
, Bert BolinBert BolinBert Rickard Johannes Bolin was a Swedish meteorologist who served as the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , from 1988 to 1997. He was professor of meteorology at Stockholm University from 1961 until his retirement in 1990....
, Klaus Ferdinand Hasselmann - 1991: Recognizing and Preventing Cancer Caused by Environmental Chemicals, Lars Ehrenberg, Dietrich Henschler, Werner Lutz, Hans-Günter Neumann
- 1992: The Spread and Transformation of Contaminants in Ground Water, Philippe Behra, Wolfgang Kinzelbach, Ludwig Luckner, René Schwarzenbach, Laura Sigg
- 1993: Bionics of Walking: The Technical Application of Biological Knowledge, Felix Chernousko, François Clarac, Holk Cruse, Friedrich Pfeiffer
- 1994: Modern Plant Breeding: From the Cell to the Plant, Dénes Dudits, Dirk InzéDirk InzéDirk Inzé is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at Ghent University . In 2002, he succeeded Marc Zabeau as head of the VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, UGent of VIB. His research interest is on oxidative stress and the cell cycle. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology...
, Anne Marie Lambert, Horst Lörz - 1995: Genetic Probes in Environmental Research and Medicine, Rudolf Amann, Erik C. Böttger, Ulf B. Göbel, Bo Barker Jørgensen, Niels Peter Revsbech, Karl-Heinz Schleifer, Jiri Wanner
- 1996: The Habitat of Treetops in the Tropics, Pierre Charles-Dominique, Antoine Cleef, Gerhard Gottsberger, Bert HölldoblerBert HölldoblerBert Hölldobler is a German behavioral biologist and Sociobiologist whose primary study subjects are social insects and in particular ants. He is a co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his work on The Ants with Edward O. Wilson...
, Karl E. Linsenmair, Ulrich Lüttge - 1996: Computer-Assisted Design of Materials, Michael Ashby, Yves Bréchet, Michel Rappaz
- 1997: Mutant Mouse Models in Clinical Research, Pawel Kisielow, Klaus RajewskyKlaus RajewskyKlaus Rajewsky is a German immunologist, renowned for his work on B cells.He studied medicine in Frankfurt, Munich and at the Pasteur Institute, Paris. In 1964, he started working at the Institute of Genetics in the University of Cologne, where he became professor for genetics. He researched...
, Harald von BoehmerHarald von BoehmerHarald von Boehmer is a German/Swiss immunologist best known for his work on T lymphocytes.He obtained an M.D. from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a Ph.D. from Melbourne University, Australia... - 1998: Magnetic resonance imaging with Helium-3, Werner Heil, Michèle Leduc, Ernst-Wilhelm Otten, Manfred Thelen
- 1998: Electronic Micronoses to Enhance Safety at the Workplace, Henry Baltes, Wolfgang Göpel, Massimo Rudan
- 1999: High-Altitude Platforms for Telecommunications, Bernd Kröplin, Per LindstrandPer LindstrandPer Lindstrand is a Swedish aeronautical engineer, pilot, adventurer and entrepreneur. He is particularly known for his series of record-breaking trans-oceanic hot air balloon flights and, later, attempts to be the first to fly a Rozière balloon around the Earth - all with British entrepreneur,...
, John Adrian Pyle, Michael André Rehmet - 2000: Perception of Shape in Technology with Insights from Nature, Rodney Douglas, Amiram Grinvald, Randolf Menzel, Wolf Singer, Christoph von der Malsburg
- 2001: Optimised Crops through Genetic Engineering, Wolf-Bernd Frommer, Rainer Hedrich, Enrico Martinoia, Dale SandersDale SandersProfessor Dale Sanders, FRS is a director of the John Innes Centre, an internationally leading institute for research in plant sciences and microbiology in Norwich, England. His specialist area is membrane transport and signal transduction in plants as well as the mechanisms of heavy metal and...
, Norbert Sauer - 2002: Scarfree Wound Healing Using Tissue Engineering, Mark W. J. Ferguson, Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Cay M. Kielty, Björn Stark, Michael G. Walker
- 2003: Light-driven Molecular Walkers, Ben Feringa, Martin Möller, Justin Molloy, Niek F. van Hulst
- 2004: Therapies for a New Group of Hereditary Diseases, Markus Aebi, Thierry Hennet, Jaak Jaeken, Ludwig Lehle, Gert Matthijs, Kurt von Figura
- 2005: Taking Light onto New Paths, Philip RussellPhilip RussellPhilip St. John Russell, FRS, is the Director of the third division of the Max Planck Research Group at the Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His area of research is "photonics and new materials"...
- 2006: Chaperons of the Protein Folding in Biotechnology and Medicine, Franz-Ulrich HartlFranz-Ulrich HartlFranz-Ulrich Hartl is a German biochemist and Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. He is known for his pioneering work in the field of protein-mediated protein folding....
- 2007: Automated Synthesis of Carbohydrate Vaccinations against Tropical Diseases, Peter Seeberger
- 2008: Drugs to Fight Cancer and Aging Maria Blasco, Maria Blasco
- 2009: GrapheneGrapheneGraphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer...
, the Thinnest Material in the Universe, Andre GeimAndre GeimAndre Konstantin Geim, FRS is a Dutch-Russian-British physicist working at the University of Manchester. Geim was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Konstantin Novoselov for his work on graphene... - 2010: AuxinAuxinAuxins are a class of plant hormones with some morphogen-like characteristics. Auxins have a cardinal role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in the plant's life cycle and are essential for plant body development. Auxins and their role in plant growth were first described by...
– Understanding Plant Growth, Jiří Friml