The Francqui Prize is a prestigious Belgian scholarly and

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

Émile Francqui Émile Francqui (; 25 June 1863 in Brussels – 1 November 1935 in Brussels) was a Belgian soldier, diplomat, business man and philanthropist. Career As an orphan, Émile Francqui was sent to a military school when he was just 15 years old. ...

. Normally annually since 1933, the

Francqui Foundation The Francqui Foundation was founded in 1932 by Emile Francqui and Herbert Hoover with the goal "to further the development of higher education and scientific research in Belgium". The foundation is a private foundation under the legal form of a ...

awards it in recognition of the achievements of a scholar or

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

, who at the start of the year still had to be under 50. It currently represents a sum of 250,000

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s and is awarded in the following three-year rotation of subjects:

exact sciences The exact sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astron ...

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

, and biological or

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

sciences. Proposed candidates must be associated with a Belgian academic institution, in the case of a foreigner for at least ten years. The recipient is selected by a jury of eight to 14 members, none of whom may be associated with a Belgian institution. The members of the international jury vote by secret letter, and the laureate they recommend must be supported by two thirds of the assembled directors of the foundation (with a quorum of 12) or no prize would be awarded that year. The prize is meant to encourage the further work of the young laureate, rather than crown the latter's career. Recipients are asked to organise an international colloquium in the appropriate discipline the same year that he is awarded the prize, which usually leads to an international publication which enables the quality of Belgian

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

to be more widely appreciated.

Laureates of the Francqui Prize

* 1933:

Henri Pirenne Henri Pirenne (; 23 December 1862 – 24 October 1935) was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a prominent public intellectual. Pirenne made a lasting contributi ...

* 1934:

Georges Lemaître Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( ; ; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the first to t ...

* 1936:

Franz Cumont __NOTOC__ Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont (3 January 1868 in Aalst, Belgium – 20 August 1947 in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre near Brussels) was a Belgian archaeologist and historian, a philologist and student of epigraphy, who brought these often isolated ...

* 1938: Jacques Errera * 1940: Pierre Nolf * 1946: François-L. Ganshof * 1946: Frans-H. van den Dungen * 1946:

Marcel Florkin Marcel Florkin (Liège, 15 August 1900 – 3 May 1979) was a Belgian biochemist. Florkin was graduated as a Doctor in Medicine and became a professor of biochemistry at the University of Liège. In 1951, he was the initiator of the Belgian Societ ...

* 1948: Léon H. Dupriez * 1948: Marc de Hemptinne * 1948: Zénon-M. Bacq * 1948:

Pol Swings Pol F. Swings (24 September 1906 – 28 October 1983) was a Belgian astrophysicist who was known for his studies of the composition and structure of stars and comets. He used spectroscopy to identify the elements in astronomical bodies, and, ...

* 1948:

Jean Brachet Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (19 March 1909 – 10 August 1988) was a Belgian biochemist who made a key contribution in understanding the role of RNA. Life Brachet was born in Etterbeek near Brussels in Belgium, the son of Albert Brachet, ...

* 1949:

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and Marxist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at least five of the ...

* 1950:

Paul Harsin Paul Marie Isidore Harsin (1902–1983) was an economic and political historian who held doctorates in the humanities, social sciences, and law. He was a professor at the University of Liège for over 40 years and briefly served as president of th ...

* 1951: Henri Koch * 1952: Florent Bureau * 1953: Claire Preaux * 1953: Etienne Lamotte * 1954: Raymond Jeener * 1955:

Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. B ...

(

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) 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." Alfr ...

Chemistry 1977) * 1956:

Louis Remacle Louis Remacle (30 September 1910 in La Gleize, Belgium – 10 May 1997) was a linguistics professor at the University of Liège who contributed in particular to the recognition and study of the Walloon language. He also published a number of inno ...

* 1957: Lucien Massart * 1958:

Léon Van Hove Léon Charles Prudent Van Hove (10 February 1924 – 2 September 1990) was a Belgian physicist and a Director General of CERN. He developed a scientific career spanning mathematics, solid state physics, elementary particle and nuclear physics t ...

* 1959:

Gérard Garitte Gérard Garitte (1914–1990) was a Belgian historian and an academic at the Catholic University of Leuven and later the French-speaking University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. He raised the study of Georgian ecclesiastical li ...

* 1960:

Christian de Duve Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve (2 October 1917 – 4 May 2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisome and lysosome, for which he shared ...

(

Medicine 1974) * 1961:

Adolphe Van Tiggelen Adolphe Van Tiggelen (1914–1969) was a Belgium, Belgian scientist and professor at the Université catholique de Louvain, University of Louvain (UCLouvain). He made important contributions to the understanding of flame processes. In 1961, he wa ...

* 1961: Jules Duchesne * 1962:

Chaïm Perelman Chaïm Perelman (born Henio (or Henri) Perelman; sometimes referred to mistakenly as Charles Perelman) (20 May 1912, Warsaw – 22 January 1984, Brussels) was a Polish-born philosopher of law, who studied, taught, and lived most of his life in B ...

* 1963:

Hubert Chantrenne Hubert Chantrenne (1918–2007) was a Belgian scientist, and one of the pioneers of molecular biology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He elucidated the messenger role played by the ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the synthesis of proteins in ...

* 1964:

Paul Ledoux Paul Ledoux (8 August 1914 – 6 October 1988) was a Belgian astrophysicist best known for his work on stellar stability and variability. With Theodore Walraven, he co-authored a seminal work on stellar oscillations. In 1964 Ledoux was awar ...

* 1965:

Roland Mortier Roland Mortier (21 December 1920 – 31 March 2015) was a prominent Belgian scholar, philosopher and academic, known for his contributions to linguistics and literature. Mortier obtained his PhD in Philology, specialisting in 18th century litera ...

* 1966: Henri G. Hers * 1967: José J. Fripiat * 1968:

Jules Horrent Jules Horrent (11 April 1920 – 11 September 1981) was a Belgium, Belgian medievalist, who was awarded the Francqui Prize in 1968 on Human Sciences for his historical workHorrent J., "Tradition poétique du Cantar de mio Cid au XII siècle", Cah ...

* 1969: Isidoor Leusen * 1970:

Radu Balescu Radu may refer to: People * Radu (given name), Romanian masculine given name * Radu (surname), Romanian surname * Rulers of Wallachia, see * Prince Radu of Romania (born 1960), disputed pretender to the former Romanian throne Other uses * Radu ( ...

* 1971:

Georges Thines Georges Thines (10 February 1923 – 25 October 2016) was a Belgium, Belgian scientist. He was awarded the Francqui Prize on Human Sciences in 1971 for his work on experimental psychology at the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the Univ ...

* 1972: Jean-Edouard Desmedt * 1973:

Pierre Macq Pierre Macq (8 July 1930 in Ganshoren – 17 September 2013) was a Belgium, Belgian physicist who was the rector of the Université catholique de Louvain, University of Louvain (UCLouvain) from 1986 until 1995. In 1973, he was awarded the Francqui ...

* 1974:

Raoul van Caenegem Raoul Charles, Baron Van Caenegem (14 July 1927 – 15 June 2018), was a Belgian historian and noted expert in the field of European legal history. Biography Raoul Van Caenegem was born in Ghent on 14 July 1927. He became a professor at the Univer ...

* 1975: René Thomas * 1976:

Walter Fiers Walter Fiers (31 January 1931 in Ypres, West Flanders – 28 July 2019 in Destelbergen) was a Belgian molecular biologist. He obtained a degree of Engineer for Chemistry and Agricultural Industries at the University of Ghent in 1954, and started ...

* 1977:

Jacques Taminiaux Jacques Taminiaux (; 29 May 1928 – 7 May 2019) was a Belgian philosopher and professor at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Biography Born in Seneffe, Taminiaux studied law and philosophy at the Catholic Univers ...

* 1978: Jacques Nihoul * 1979:

Jozef Schell Jozef Stefaan "Jeff", Baron Schell (20 July 1935 – 17 April 2003) was a Belgian molecular biologist. Schell studied zoology and microbiology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. From 1967 to 1995 he worked as a professor at the university. Fro ...

* 1980:

Jozef IJsewijn Jozef A. M. K. IJsewijn ( Zwijndrecht, 30 December 1932 – Leuven, 27 November 1998) was a Belgian Latinist. He studied classical philology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where he became a professor in 1967. An authority on Neo-Latin lit ...

* 1981: André Trouet * 1982:

François Englert François, Baron Englert (; born 6 November 1932) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and 2013 Nobel prize laureate. Englert is professor emeritus at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he is a member of the Service de Physique Thé ...

(

Physics 2013) * 1983: Alexis Jacquemin * 1984: Désiré Collen * 1985:

Amand Lucas Amand Lucas (born 18 December 1936, Liège) is a Belgian scientist and professor at the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, at the Institute for Studies in Interface Sciences.Ritchie R.H., Lambin P., Lambert D., Vigneron J.P. Echeniq ...

* 1986: Marc Wilmet * 1987: Jacques Urbain * 1988:

Pierre van Moerbeke Pierre van Moerbeke (born 1 October 1944 in Leuven, Belgium) is a Belgian mathematician. He studied mathematics at the Catholic University of Leuven (1834–1968), Catholic University of Leuven, where he received his degree in 1966. He then obtai ...

* 1989: Pierre Pestieau * 1990:

Thierry Boon Thierry Boon is a Belgian scientist, former Director of the Ludwig Cancer Research branch in (Belgium) and professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He observed that tumour cells that have acquired new mutations as a result of mutagen tre ...

* 1991:

Jean-Marie Andre Jean-Marie is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 1950), a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult expert, and graduate in criminal law * Jean-Marie C ...

* 1992: Géry van Outryve d'Ydewalle * 1993: Gilbert Vassart * 1994:

Eric G. Derouane The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

* 1995:

Claude d'Aspremont Lynden Count Claude d'Aspremont Lynden is a Belgian economist and professor at the Universite Catholique de Louvain, ''Center for Operations Research and Econometrics'' (CORE), and ''Département des sciences économiques'' (ECON). He obtained a PhD (di ...

* 1996:

Etienne Pays Etienne Pays (born 2 November 1948) is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. His research interest is on trypanosomes. He obtained a PhD in Zoology from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in 197 ...

* 1997:

Jean-Luc Brédas Jean-Luc Brédas is an American chemist, working at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was born in Fraire, Belgium, on 23 May 1954. He received his PhD from the University of Namur, Belgium, in 1979. In 1988, he was appointed Professor a ...

* 1998:

Mathias Dewatripont Mathias François Dewatripont (born 27 December 1959) is a Belgian economist and professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He studied economics at the ULB, ...

* 1999: Marc Parmentier * 2000:

Marc Henneaux Marc, Baron Henneaux is a Belgian theoretical physicist and professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) who was born in Brussels on 5 March 1955. Education and career Henneaux studied physics at ULB and received his doctoral degree i ...

* 2000: Eric Remacle and

Paul Magnette Paul Magnette (born 28 June 1971) is a Belgian politician for the Socialist Party, the current mayor of Charleroi and former political science professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He was the 13th Minister-President of Wallonia ...

(Exceptional Francqui Prize for European Research) * 2001:

Philippe Van Parijs Philippe Van Parijs (; born 1951) is a Belgian political philosopher and political economist, best known as a proponent and main defender of the concept of an unconditional basic income and for the first systematic treatment of linguistic jus ...

* 2002: Peter Carmeliet * 2003: Michel Van Den Bergh * 2004:

Marie-Claire Foblets Marie-Claire, Baroness Foblets is a Belgian lawyer and anthropologist, who is currently Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and Professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her research interests are interculturalism, ...

* 2005:

Dirk Inzé Dirk Inzé (born 19 October 1957) is a Belgium, Belgian molecular biologist and professor at Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium). In 2002, he succeeded Marc Zabeau as scientific director of the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology. His researc ...

* 2006:

Pierre Gaspard Pierre Gaspard (born 6 December 1959) is a Belgian physicist and professor at the ''Interdisciplinary Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems'' and the ''Service de Physique Non-Linéaire and Mécanique Statistique'' of the Universit ...

* 2007:

François de Callataÿ François de Callataÿ (born 1961) is a Belgian ancient historian, professor at the École pratique des hautes études (Paris/Sorbonne), who has written significant studies of coinage and finance in the ancient Mediterranean world. Life and caree ...

* 2008:

Michel A. J. Georges Michel A. J. Georges (1959) is a Belgian biologist and a professor at the University of Liège. Birth and education Michel A. J. Georges was born in 1959 in Schoten, Belgium. He received his Doctor in Veterinary Medicine from the University of L ...

* 2009: Eric Lambin * 2010: François Maniquet * 2011: Pierre Vanderhaegen * 2012: Conny Aerts * 2013: Olivier De Schutter * 2014: Bart Lambrecht * 2015: Stefaan Vaes * 2016:

Barbara Baert Barbara Baert (born 1967,Turnhout) is a Belgian art historian, and professor of art history at KU Leuven. Career Barbara Baert teaches in the fields of iconology, art theory and analysis, and medieval art. She is the founder of the Iconology Res ...

* 2017: Steven Laureys * 2018:

Frank Verstraete Frank Verstraete (born November 1972) is a Belgian quantum physicist who is working on the interface between quantum information theory and quantum many-body physics. He pioneered the use of tensor networks and entanglement theory in quantum man ...

* 2019: Laurens Cherchye, Bram De Rock and Frederic Vermeulen

External links

Francqui foundationLaureates of the Francqui Prize
{{in lang, fr Science and technology awards Social sciences awards Early career awards Belgian awards Awards established in 1933 1933 establishments in Belgium

Laureates of the Francqui Prize

See also

External links