The Körber European Science Prize is presented annually by the

Körber Foundation The Körber Foundation (German: ''Körber-Stiftung'') is a nonprofit organization, established in 1959 by German businessman Kurt A. Körber. It provides a platform to discuss present political topics and develops operational projects on social an ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

honoring outstanding scientists working in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

for their promising research projects. The prize is endowed with one million euro (until 2018: 750,000 euro) and promotes research projects in the

life sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, th ...

and

physical sciences Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Phy ...

History

The prize was initiated by the entrepreneur Kurt A. Körber with the help of

Reimar Lüst Reimar Lüst (; 25 March 1923 – 31 March 2020) was a German astrophysicist. He worked in European space science from its beginning, as the scientific director of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) from 1962 and as Director Gener ...

, the president of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

. The first award was in 1985. At first, European research teams were honored, but since 2005, only individuals qualify.

Selection process

Candidates for the prize need not be from Europe, but they must be living in Europe. Renowned scientists from all over Europe, grouped into two Search Committees, select promising candidates. The awards are annual and alternate between the life and physical sciences. 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 one million euro (until 2008: 750,000 euros) prize money. The prizewinners can keep 10 percent of the money for themselves and must spend the rest on research in Europe in three to five years. Aside from these restrictions they alone can decide how to use the money.

Presentation

The prize is presented every year in the Great Hall of

Hamburg City Hall Hamburg City Hall (german: link=no, Hamburger Rathaus, ) is the seat of local government of the Free and Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is the seat of the government of Hamburg and as such, the seat of one of Germany's ...

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 ( AIDS), Jean-Claude Gluckman, Sven Haahr, George Janossy, David Klatzmann,

Luc Montagnier Luc Montagnier (; , ; 18 August 1932 – 8 February 2022) was a French virologist and joint recipient, with and , of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). He worked as a r ...

, Paul Rácz *1987: Further Development of

Electron Holography Electron 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 Mulvey ...

, Karl-Heinz Herrmann, Friedrich Lenz, Hannes Lichte,

Gottfried Möllenstedt Gottfried Möllenstedt (14 September 1912 – 11 September 1997) was a German physicist and professor at the University of Tübingen, where he founded the Institute of Applied Physics in 1957, and served as rector from 1966 to 1968. Together wi ...

*1987: Creating Ultralow Temperatures,

Riitta Hari Riitta Kyllikki Hari (born 16 January 1948) is a Finnish neuroscientist, physician and professor at Aalto University. She has led the Brain Research Unit at the Low Temperature Laboratory since 1982. Hari was appointed as Academician of Science o ...

, Matti Krusius,

Olli V. Lounasmaa Olli Viktor Lounasmaa (20 August 1930, Turku – 27 December 2002, Goa, India) was a Finnish academician, experimental physicist and neuroscientist. He was known for his research in low temperature physics, especially for experimental proo ...

, Martti Salomaa *1988: Extending the Hamburg

Pyrolytic Technique The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere. It involves a change of chemical composition. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements ''pyr ...

to Destroy Toxic Wastes, Alfons Buekens, Vasilij Dragalov,

Walter Kaminsky Walter Kaminsky (born 7 May 1941) 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 (MAO) mixtures as catalysts for olefin pol ...

, 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 Bengtsson Lennart Bengtsson (born ) is a Swedish meteorologist. His research interests include climate sensitivity, extreme events, climate variability and climate predictability. Career He was head of research at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weat ...

Bert Bolin Bert Rickard Johannes Bolin (; 15 May 1925 – 30 December 2007) was a Swedish meteorologist who served as the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from 1988 to 1997. He was professor of meteorology at Stockh ...

, 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 René P. Schwarzenbach (born 18 December 1945) in Erlenbach is a Swiss chemist. He is professor emeritus of environmental chemistry and a former head of the department of environmental sciences at the ETH Zürich. Schwarzenbach received his Ph.D. ...

, 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 Dénes is a Hungarian male given name, the equivalent of Denis in English and can sometimes stand for or replace the feminine version of Den(n)is, namely ''Denise''. As with many given names, it also transitioned into a surname in the Middle Ages. N ...

, Dirk Inzé, Anne Marie Lambert, Horst Lörz *1995: Genetic Probes in Environmental Research and Medicine,

Rudolf Amann Rudolf Amann (born 3 June 1961) is a German microbiologist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (MPIMM) in Bremen, and since 2001 Professor of Microbial Ecology at the University of Bremen. Scientific career Betwee ...

, 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 Hölldobler Berthold Karl Hölldobler (born 25 June 1936) is a German sociobiologist and evolutionary biologist who studies evolution and social organization in ants. He is the author of several books, including '' The Ants'', for which he and his co-author ...

, 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 Rajewsky Klaus Rajewsky (born 12 November 1936 in Frankfurt am Main) 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 Institut ...

, Harald von Boehmer *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 Bernd-Helmut Kröplin (11 November 1944, in Schleswig, Germany – 1 January 2019) was a German engineer and academic. Life After a trade apprenticeship as a bricklayer, Kröplin studied Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Braunsc ...

, Per Lindstrand,

John Adrian Pyle John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Seco ...

, Michael André Rehmet *2000: Perception of Shape in Technology with Insights from Nature, Rodney Douglas, Amiram Grinvald,

Randolf Menzel Randolph may refer to: Places In the United States * Randolph, Alabama, an unincorporated community * Randolph, Arizona, a populated place * Randolph, California, a village merged into the city of Brea * Randolph, Illinois, an unincorporated comm ...

Wolf Singer Wolf Joachim Singer (born 9 March 1943) is a German neurophysiologist. Life and career Singer was born in Munich and studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU Munich) from 1965 onwards (as a scholarship holder of t ...

, Christoph von der Malsburg *2001: Optimised Crops through Genetic Engineering, Wolf-Bernd Frommer, Rainer Hedrich, Enrico Martinoia,

Dale Sanders Dale Sanders, FRS (born 13 May 1953) was Director of the John Innes Centre, an institute for research in plant sciences and microbiology in Norwich, England. Education Sanders was educated at The Hemel Hempstead School. He gained a Bachelor o ...

, 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 Bernard Lucas Feringa (, born 18 May 1951) is a Dutch synthetic organic chemist, specializing in molecular nanotechnology and homogeneous catalysis. He is the Jacobus van 't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, at the Strating ...

, 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 Russell *2006: Chaperons of the Protein Folding in Biotechnology and Medicine,

Franz-Ulrich Hartl Franz-Ulrich Hartl (born 10 March 1957) 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 and is a recipient of the 2011 ...

*2007: Automated Synthesis of Carbohydrate Vaccinations against Tropical Diseases,

Peter Seeberger Peter H. Seeberger (born 1966, in Nuremberg) is a German chemist. Biography Seeberger studied chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1995 as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Colora ...

*2008: Drugs to Fight Cancer and Aging,

Maria Blasco Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

*2009:

Graphene Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.

, the Thinnest Material in the Universe,

Andre Geim , birth_date = , birth_place = Sochi, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union , death_date = , death_place = , workplaces = , nationality = Dutch and British , fields = Condensed matter physics ...

*2010: Auxin – Understanding Plant Growth, Jiří Friml *2011:

STED microscopy Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is one of the techniques that make up super-resolution microscopy. It creates super-resolution images by the selective deactivation of fluorophores, minimizing the area of illumination at the focal ...

Stefan Hell Stefan Walter Hell HonFRMS (: born 23 December 1962) is a Romanian-German physicist and one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 "for the ...

*2012: Ground-breaking work on the

Proteome The proteome is the entire set of proteins that is, or can be, expressed by a genome, cell, tissue, or organism at a certain time. It is the set of expressed proteins in a given type of cell or organism, at a given time, under defined conditions. ...

, Matthias Mann. *2013:

Immanuel Bloch Immanuel Bloch (born 16 November 1972, Fulda) is a German experimental physicist. His research is focused on the investigation of quantum many-body systems using ultracold atomic and molecular quantum gases. Bloch is known for his work on atoms ...

*2014:

May-Britt Moser May-Britt Moser (born 4 January 1963) is a Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist, who is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She and her then-husband, Edvard Moser, share ...

and

Edvard Moser Edvard Ingjald Moser (; born 27 April 1962) is a Norwegian professor of psychology and neuroscience at thKavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. In 2005, he and May-Brit ...

*2015: Multiferroics,

Nicola Spaldin Nicola Ann Spaldin (born 1969)Nicola Spaldin's FRS is Professor of Materials Theory at ETH Zurich, known for her pioneering research on multiferroics. Education and early life A native of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England, Spaldin earned a ...

*2016:

Hans Clevers Johannes (Hans) Carolus Clevers (born 27 March 1957) is a Dutch molecular geneticist, cell biologist and stem cell researcher. He became the Head of Pharma, Research and Early Development, and a member of the Corporate Executive Committee, of t ...

*2017: , for he and his team developed the key technologies, including high-precision lasers, which

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large o ...

were able to

direct Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), ...

detected

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in ...

s in 2015. *2018:

Svante Pääbo Svante Pääbo (; born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish geneticist who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding dir ...

, for his pioneering achievements in the field of paleogenetics. *2019: Bernhard Schölkopf, for developing mathematical methods that have made a significant contribution to helping artificial intelligence (AI) reach its most recent heights. *2020:

Botond Roska Botond Roska (born 1969) is a Hungarian medical doctor and biomedical researcher. Much of his research is on the pathways of visual perception and how to treat diseases that cause blindness. Early life and education Botond Roska was born in 1969 ...

, for revolutionising

ophthalmology Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a med ...

. *2021:

Clare Grey Dame Clare Philomena Grey is Geoffrey Moorhouse Gibson Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Grey uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study and optimiz ...

, for optimisation of batteries using NMR spectroscopy. *2022: Anthony A. Hyman, for research on cell droplets

References

External links

Körber European Science Prize
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korber European Science Prize Science and technology awards