Descartes Prize

The Descartes Prize was conferred from 2000 to 2007, European Science Award.

The award, named after René Descartes, the European Commission drew annually from the most successful transnational research project in Europe. The price was doped with 1 million euros. The prize money was - divided among the winners - not necessarily in equal parts.

Award winners

2000

  • Ian Smith, Birmingham University, and Bertrand Rowe, Université de Rennes, with her team (A. Canossa, I. Simms, D. Chastaing ) for chemistry close to absolute zero
  • Alan Lehman, University of Sussex, and his team (M. Stefanini, JH Hoeijmakers, JM Egly ) for work on the XPD gene
  • Dago de Leeuw, Philips, and his team (B. Huisman, P. Herwig, R. Janssen, B. Langveld - Voss, A. Spiering, D. Bäuerle, E. Mena - Osteritz, G. Götz, P. Brown, H. Sirringhaus, MM Nielsen, K. Bechgaard ) for the development of plastic transistors

2001

  • January Balzarini and Eric de Clercq, Rega Institute for Medical Research Leuven, and staff for the development of new agents against HIV
  • Michael North, King's College, London and his team ( Belokon, Rozenberg, Saghiyan, Kagan, Brown, Borner ) for the development of new asymmetric catalysts in the chemical

2002

  • Lars Fugger, University of Oxford and his team (including Rikard Holmdahl, Yvonne Jones) for studies in multiple sclerosis
  • Edward van den Heuvel, University of Amsterdam and his group (including Luigi Piro, Jens Hjorth ) for work on gamma-ray bursts

2003

  • Richard Henry Friend, University of Cambridge and his team for organic light-emitting diodes
  • Veronique Dehant, Observatoire Royal de Belgique and her team (including Harald Schuh) for an expanded theory of the Earth's rotation and nutation

2004

  • MBAD project under the direction of Howard Trevor Jacobs ( with Nils- Göran Larsson, Ian J. Holt, Massimo Zeviani, Pierre Rustin ) for work on the aging of the mitochondria
  • IS - QuComm project led by Anders Karlsson ( with Harald Weinfurter, Anton Zeilinger, Artur Ekert, Nicolas Gisin, Richard Hughes, Thierry Debuisschert, John G. Rarity ) for quantum communication

2005

  • EXCEL team for a new class of artificial metamaterials, so-called left-handed materials ( LHM ) or materials with negative refractive index
  • CECA team for findings on climate and environmental change in the Arctic
  • PULSE team for the influence of European pulsar on modern physics
  • ESS project ( European Social Survey ) for innovations in cross-national surveys
  • EURO- PID project for research on a group of more than 130 rare genetic diseases, the so-called primary immunodeficiencies

2006

  • Werner Hofmann of the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics for his work as a project manager at the High Energy Stereoscopic System HESS
  • Hydrosol project, led by Athanasios Konstandopoulos for a method of producing hydrogen by water splitting using solar energy
  • APOPTOSIS project under the direction of Guido Kroemer for understanding of apoptosis

2007

  • Project Virlis for the fight against listeriosis infections, project partners: Pascale Cossart, Institut Pasteur, France (coordinator); Jürgen Wehland, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research GmbH, Germany; Trinad Chakraborty, Justus -Liebig- University of Giessen, Germany; Werner Goebel, Jürgen Kreft and Michael Kuhn, Julius -Maximilians -Universität Würzburg, Germany; Fernando Baquero, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Spain; José Antonio Vazquez - Boland, Universidad de León, Spain; Francisco García del Portillo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain
  • SynNanoMotors project for the development of synthetic nano- motors, project partners: David A. Leigh, University of Edinburgh, UK ( coordinator ); François Kajzar, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, France; Fabio Biscarini, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy; Francesco Zerbetto, Università di Bologna, Italy; Wybren January Buma, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Petra Rudolf, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
  • EPICA project for the reconstruction of climate history on the basis of obtained in deep holes in the Antarctic ice cores, project partners: Hubertus Fischer Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany (coordinator); Jean -Louis Tison, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Thomas Stocker, University of Bern, Switzerland; Dorthe Dahl -Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Valérie Masson- Delmotte, CNRS / CEA, France; Gérard Jugie, Institut Polaire Paul Emile Victor, France; Massimo Frezzotti, per le Nuove Tecnologie duck, l' Energia e l' Ambiente, Italy; Valter Maggi, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Italy; Michiel van den Broeke, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands; Elisabeth Isaksson, Norwegian Polar Institute, Norway; Margareta Hansson, Stockholm University, Sweden; Eric Wolff, Natural Environment Research Council, UK
Ed van den Heuvel David Leigh (scientist) European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica
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