The Blavatnik Prize
Blavatnik will light up the "superstars of science"
Billionaire Blavatnik has established a major prize
for young American scientists: $250,000Pavel Kotlyar, Newspaper.
The list of monetary prizes awarded annually in the world for scientific achievements has been replenished with another one. In the USA, Leonid Blavatnik, an American billionaire entrepreneur of Soviet origin, announced the establishment of a new award in the amount of $250,000 (7.5 million rubles) - The New York Academy of Sciences, Awards Program Launched Nationally.
Each year, this award, which serves to "identify and support America's most promising scientists under the age of 42," will be awarded to three scientists for achievements in physics and engineering, chemistry and the field of life sciences.
The award will have two founders. This is the Blavatnik Family Foundation, through which the businessman donates money to American education and the Jewish community, and the New York Academy of Sciences, a scientific non-profit organization. "Unlike awards intended for venerable scientists, the Blavatnik Prize is aimed at supporting those scientists who are young and can benefit from early recognition," said Torsten Wiesel, Honorary Chairman of the Academy.
"The Nobel Prize is about $1 million. I think $250k is enough to make the award really interesting, and not so much that it is unimaginable. There are many awards for established scientists in the world, but I don't think that young scientists receive sufficient systematic support," Blavatnik said.– Our goal is to glorify the most outstanding American scientists, to celebrate their achievements in order to inspire a new generation of researchers. The Blavatnik Foundation intends to support revolutionary research in science and technology that solves the most important global problems."
The release of Blavatnik's charitable activity on a national scale became possible after the success of his regional award, established in 2007 for young scientists in three states – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The laureates of this award, which is also claimed by mathematicians, are paid $ 30 thousand each.
"We kind of rolled out the award at the regional level and gathered an incredible pool of talent. We are going to keep those bonuses, but the amount of $ 250 thousand will take them to another level," Blavatnik added.
About three hundred leading US universities, independent research centers, recognized scientists, Nobel laureates and winners of past Blavatnik Prizes will be able to nominate candidates for the Blavatnik Prize.
The submitted applications will be evaluated by a special jury, which will include 60 of the most outstanding American scientists. They will have to select the laureates according to criteria such as quality, novelty and scientific impact of the work done.
Applications for the first prizes will be accepted from October to December 2013. The announcement of the winners of the national award will take place in September 2014. "Len (Leonid) is a businessman to the core, he created the predecessor of this award within three states, and looking at many of the laureates, we can say that this is a success!", – says Ellis Rubinstein, head of the New York Academy of Sciences, according to whom, the purpose of the award is to create "superstars in science."
Blavatnik, who emigrated to the United States in 1978, is the founder of the investment company Access Industries. The company is building a business in three areas: mining, the media market and real estate. In May "Newspaper.Ru" reported that the billionaire intends to acquire 30% of the shares of the Russian Svyaznoy group, the transaction amount may reach $ 200 million. The businessman's fortune is estimated at more than $16 billion, until 2013, Access Industries, as part of the AAR consortium, was among the Russian shareholders of TNK-BP, which was sold to Rosneft.
Over the past few years, Blavatnik has noticeably increased his spending on charitable purposes. In 2013, his foundation transferred $50 million to Harvard University for the development of entrepreneurial programs in the field of life sciences, and three years ago allocated $114 to Oxford University for the creation of a school of management.
The Blavatnik Prize in size will be on a par with the largest scientific prizes in the world. To date, the largest scientific prize is the prize for fundamental physics, established by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, co–owner Mail.Ru Group and the DST investment fund, which is $3 million. The same size is also the prize established by Yuri Milner together with Facebook and Google founders Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin, which will be awarded for breakthroughs in the field of medicine. In addition to these awards, the Yuri Milner Foundation gives prizes to young scientists, the amount of which is $ 300 thousand – $ 50 thousand more than the new Blavatnik Prize.
The most famous and status, the Nobel Prize, is approximately $1.4 million, the Shaw, Kavli and Abel Prizes are a million dollars each. The size of the State Prize of the Russian Federation for achievements in science and technology is 5 million rubles, the presidential prize for young scientists is 2.5 million rubles.
"This is a good event, important for young scientists and science in general. Alexander Kabanov, winner of the "megagrant" from Moscow State University, co–director of the Institute of Nanomedicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, believes that it would be very nice if Abramovich, Prokhorov, Vekselberg, Khan or someone else from this list would establish an award for young scientists that could I would like to get not only Russian, but any young scientists. But, firstly, so that the award would be issued in Russia, for example, in Moscow. Secondly, the experts should be international, including Nobel laureates, really the largest Russian scientists. And to be judged by the "Hamburg account" and given a large sum. This, in my opinion, would attract attention to the work of our scientists, give them the opportunity to test themselves on the world stage and at the same time be noticed. Like at the Tchaikovsky competition. If Van Cliburn wins, we will applaud the American genius, if our own wins, we will be proud of our own.
I think with pain and hope about the fate of young scientists from 30 to 40 in Russia.
With pain because they are in a difficult situation – I have already said this, the connection of scientific generations has been destroyed, there is no agreement between different representatives of the Russian scientific community. All this creates an unfavorable psychological situation, has a bad effect on the results.
Hopefully, because when I returned to Russia thanks to the megagrant, I realized that in the 2000s a galaxy of talented young scientists who understand how to do science according to world standards grew up. Now is a critical time – talented Russian youth need to be supported. To support her today, and not later, when she is gone."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru04.06.2013