The names of the 2010 Balzan Prizewinners were announced in a public event in Milan, Italy on September 6:
- Carlo Ginzburg (Italy), Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, for
European History, 1400-1700 (including the British Isles)
- Manfred Brauneck (Germany), University of Hamburg, for
The History of Theatre in All Its Aspects
- Shinya Yamanaka (Japan/USA), Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University, for
Stem Cells: Biology and Potential Applications
- Jacob Palis (Brazil), Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro for Mathematics (pure or applied)
The Balzan Prizes 2010 have been announced in Milan by the Chairman of the Balzan General Prize Committee, Salvatore Veca, together with the President of the Balzan "Prize" Foundation, Ambassador Bruno Bottai, at the Corriere della Sera Foundation.
The profiles of the winners and the motivations of the Prizes (which will be awarded by the President of the Italian Republic, during a ceremony to be held in Rome on November 19) were presented by four prestigious members of the General Prize Committee:
Quentin Skinner (Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London; Fellow of the British Academy and of Christ's College Cambridge) read the motivation for the assignment of the Prize for European History, 1400-1700 (including the British Isles) to Carlo Ginzburg:
"For the exceptional combination of imagination, scholarly precision and literary skill with which he has recovered and illuminated the beliefs of ordinary people in Early-modern Europe".
Gottfried Scholz (Professor Emeritus of Music Analysis at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna; Fellow of the Sudetendeutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste, Munich) read the motivation for the assignment of the Prize for The History of Theatre in All Its Aspects to Manfred Bauneck
"For his wide-ranging account of two and a half millennia in the history of European theatre, as well as his research on currents and events of an international nature in the world of theatre".
Nicole Le Douarin (Honorary Professor at the Collčge de France; Member of the Institut de France, Honorary Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences) read the motivation for the assignment of the Prize for Stem Cells: Biology and Potential Applications to Shinya Yamanaka:
"For the discovery of a method to transform already differentiated adult cells into cells presenting the characteristics of embryonic stem cells".
Étienne Ghys (Research Director at the CNRS, Pure and Applied Mathematics Unit, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon) read the motivation for the assignment of the Prize for Mathematics (pure or applied) to Jacob Palis:
"For his fundamental contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Dynamical Systems".
The President of the General Prize Committee, Professor Salvatore Veca, announced that the 2011 Balzan Prizes will be awarded in the following fields:
Ancient History (The Graeco-Roman World),
Enlightenment Studies,
Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics,
The early Universe (from Planck-time to the first galaxies)
The amount of each of the four 2011 Balzan Prizes will be 750.000 Swiss Francs (approx. Eur. 577,000, $ 740,000, £ 470,000).
The award fields vary each year and can be related to either a specific or an interdisciplinary field, and look to 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), so as to give priority to innovative research.
Half of the amount received by the winner of each of the four prizes must be destined for research work, preferably involving young scholars and researchers.
The public announcement, under the auspices of the City of Milan, was followed by a lecture by Paolo Rossi Monti, 2009 Balzan Prize for the History of Science, entitled "La scienza e la sua storia" (science and its history).
Provided by Gold Communications
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