The Balzan Prizes 2011: History, Enligthenment, Bioinformatics and Astrophysics

The four Balzan Prizewinners for 2011 will be officially announced in Milan on 5 September, 2011. The General Prize Committee of the Balzan Foundation “Prize”, chaired in Milan by Salvatore Veca, and whose British members include Charles J. Godfray and Quentin Skinner, has already announced the subject areas for the 2011 Balzan Prizes:

– Ancient History (The Graeco-Roman World)
– Enlightenment Studies
– Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics
– The Early Universe (From the Planck Time to the First Galaxies).
The Balzan Prize is unique among international awards in recognising, on an annual basis, particularly relevant, innovative and specific research carried out in two broad categories: 1) Literature, Moral Sciences and the Arts, and 2) Physical, Mathematical and the Natural Sciences and Medicine. Consequently, the Balzan Prize aims to promote the humanities and the sciences across all fields of knowledge.

The amount of each prize is 750,000 Swiss francs. Prize winners are required to earmark half of the sum for the financing of research projects preferably conducted by young scientists and scholars.

UK Balzan Prizewinners

2009 Terence Cave – Literature since 1500
2007 Rosalyn Higgins – International Law since 1945
2006 Quentin Skinner – Political Thought; History and Theory
2005 Peter and Rosemary Grant – Population Biology
2005 Peter Hall – Social and Cultural History of Cities since 16th entury
2004 Michael Marmot – Epidemiology
2004 Colin Renfrew – Prehistoric Archaeology
2003 Eric Hobsbawm – European History since 1900
2000 Martin Litchfield West – Classical Antiquity
1999 John Elliott – History, 1500-1800
1998 Robert McCreadie May – Biodiversity
1997 Thomas Wilson Meade – Epidemiology
1994 Fred Hoyle (+ Martin Schwarzschild – Germany)
– Astrophysics (Evolution of Stars)
1991 Maynard Smith – Genetics and Evolution
1989 Martin Rees – High Energy Astrophysics
1987 Richard W. Southern – Medieval History
1985 Ernst H.J. Gombrich (UK/Austria) – History of Western Art
1982 Kenneth Vivian Thimann – Pure and Applied Botany
1981 Dan P. McKenzie + Drummond H. Matthews + Frederick J. Vine
– Geology and Geophysics
Contact:
International Balzan Foundation
Press office
Marcello Foresti
Piazzetta Umberto Giordano 4
20122 Milan, Italy
T +39 02 7600 2212
M +39 334 1687 132
E ufficio.stampa@balzan.it