Hypatia European Science Prize
The Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (Barcelona Knowledge Hub, AE-BKH), awards this prize on an annual basis with the aim of contributing to the visibility of science, as well as promoting, reinforcing and maximizing the value of the search for excellence and its impact on society at European level.
The aim of this award is to promote the city of Barcelona as the European capital of science, supporting scientific knowledge and research in different areas. The prize aims to recognise the best career and trajectory of a person in the field of science and research developed at the highest international level, with influence on different fields of knowledge and with a positive impact on the welfare of humanity.
The name of the prize as Hypatia is intended to highlight the figure of the philosopher and scientist Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 355-415), a woman who knew how to combine and transmit all the fields of knowledge of her time and who, precisely for this reason, was assassinated by the forces of ignorance and fanaticism.
Three-year cycle
The prize has a monetary award of 30,000 euros, which is given at an institutional ceremony in which the winner gives a lecture on his or her research career.
The prize is awarded every three years and alternates each year between the three main areas of knowledge:
- Science and technology
- Life and health sciences
- Humanities and social sciences
Fifth edition
The call for the fifth edition of the European Science Prize, which in this case corresponds to the Life and Health Sciences category of the second three-year cycle, is now open. Nominations were only proposed by members of the Scientific Advisory Board and the Academia Europaea, from July 11 to September 10, through this link.
The Hypatia Prize is aimed at individuals in the field of research who have predominantly developed their research career in a European country. These individuals must have a trajectory of research excellence at the highest international level, and, in the case of this edition, must fall within the scope of life and health sciences.
Fourth edition
Artificial intelligence expert Nuria Oliver is the winner of the fourth Hypatia Prize in the Science and Technology category for her research excellence in the development of new AI methods and systems to drive positive social impact, a track record of exceptional international influence that has resulted in more than 40 registered patents.
The award was presented on 4 March 2024 at an event in the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Hall in which Nuria Oliver gave the lecture "Towards a Socially Sustainable Artificial Intelligence". You can relive the event with the video included on this page.
A Telecommunications Engineer from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oliver has focused her research on modelling individual and aggregate human behaviour through machine learning techniques and the creation of intelligent and interactive systems, covering diverse areas of social impact, including health and well-being, financial inclusion and natural disasters.
Among other positions in the telecommunications sector, she has been scientific director of Telefónica R&D, scientific and data science director of Vodafone Group (UK), and co-founder and vice-president of ELLIS, The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (Germany).
Nuria Oliver is passionate about science and technology outreach, with hundreds of media appearances, and is actively committed to attracting young talent - especially women - to engineering and computer science. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she was commissioner of the Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana for the Valencian AI Strategy, and especially for the coordination of data science to fight Covid-19.
Philosopher Nancy Cartwright is the winner of the third Hypatia Prize for her outstanding contribution to philosophical research. Nancy Cartwright's work has had far-reaching consequences in various fields of knowledge, from the natural sciences to the social and human sciences. Her contributions have laid the foundations for an approach that combines rigour and realism and aims at evidence-based policy.
The award was presented on 27 October 2022, at a ceremony in the Saló de Cent of Barcelona City Hall as part of the Building Bridges conference of the Academia Europaea, at which Nancy Cartwright gave the lecture "Modelling objectively". You can relive the event with the video included on this page.
Nancy Cartwright focused her early career on the philosophy of physics. She later turned to the social and economic sciences, paying particular attention to causality, evidence and modelling. His recent research has been concerned with scientific evidence, objectivity and how to operationalise scientific knowledge, particularly to improve policy deliberation. She has also worked on education, child protection and international development projects.
She is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego. She has previously worked at Stanford University and the London School of Economics. She is also an honorary professor at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and a visiting professor at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at the University of Johannesburg. She has been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of St Andrews and the Southern Methodist University.
The jury for the third Hipatia Prize was composed of Björn Wittrock, professor emeritus at the University of Uppsala, Genoveva Martí, ICREA research professor at the UB, Maria Dolors Garcia-Ramon, professor emeritus at the UAB, Alexander Fidora, ICREA research professor at the UAB, Ricard Guerrero, professor emeritus at the UB, and Natàlia Amorós, secretary delegate of the Department of Culture, Education, Science and Community of the Barcelona City Council.
On 2 June 2021, the second Hypatia Prize was awarded to Ilaria Capua, virologist and director of the One Health Excellence Centre at the University of Florida, for her outstanding career in the field of research in veterinary medicine and microbiology, for her contributions to science policy and the multidisciplinary concept of one health, and for her leadership in promoting open access to genetic information on emerging viruses.
Capua has been chosen from nineteen previously nominated candidates in the field of life and health sciences on which this second edition of the Hypatia Award was focused. Ilaria Capua is Professor and Director of the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida. She has dedicated her professional career to the study of zoonotic viral infections that can be transmitted to humans, many of which have an impact on the critical issue of food safety. At the height of the spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in 2006, Capua initiated a global scientific debate on data sharing with the publication of the genetic sequence of an African variant of the virus in an open access public database. This has been a paradigm shift towards real-time sharing of genetic information on potentially pandemic viruses for the fight against emerging health threats such as influenza, Ebola, Zika and coronaviruses.
Capua currently directs the University of Florida's circular health programme, which aims to jointly advance human, animal, plant and environmental health as a single system by harnessing big data. As a keynote speaker at international events, Capua is particularly active in communicating scientific knowledge to non-expert audiences and advocating for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Of the 23 entries received on the first call, in the Science and Technology category, the Evaluation Committee awarded the prize to László Lovász in recognition of his career devoted to international research at the highest level and to its fruits in Hungarian society and the world, putting mathematics as a scientific discipline at the service of society.
On 22 March, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced the award of the Abel Prize in Mathematics 2021 to László Lovász.
