Descartes Prizes for Research & Science
Communication -
2005 Winners announced
Scientific and technological excellence are essential
pre-requisites for Europe to succeed in the competitive environment of
international research and scientific development. The Descartes
Prize for Research has been awarded yearly, since 2000, to
transnational research teams which have achieved outstanding
scientific or technological results through collaborative research in
any field of science, including economics, social sciences and
humanities. The amount of the prize to be shared among the laureates
is one million euros. To date, 11 projects involving 78 teams from 25
European and non-European countries have been awarded the prestigious
prize.
The prize was completed in 2004 with the
Descartes Prize for science communication.
A joint call for proposals for both
Descartes Prizes was published on 15 December 2004, with a closing
date on 10 May 2005 .
Proposals may be submitted by the research teams themselves, or by
appropriate public or private organisations. Teams must involve at
least two mutually independent legal entities established in two
different Members States or in a Member State and an Associated State.
Provided that these minimum criteria are fulfilled entries may involve
teams from outside the European Union.
Research teams or nominating bodies can only present one project
per proposal and a maximum of 5 proposals. If more than five proposals
are sent by the same proposing organisation, only the latest five to
arrive to the Commission may be evaluated.
Candidates to the prize must designate among
themselves a co-ordinator that will submit the proposal and will take
the leading role in representing the proposal during the selection
procedure.
In order to send a candidature, the prize organiser
must fill in the forms contained in a document called "guide
for proposers", which is common to both the Descartes
Prize for Research and the Descartes Prize for Science Communication.
The prize does not concern projects, which were
originally financed by the European Community RTD programmes.
The Laureates and Finalists of the prize are invited to participate
in the award ceremony to testify about their works.
The evaluation
1. Firstly, applications will be submitted to
panels of independent experts. They will pre-select and propose a
limited number of projects according to the following criteria:
· Scientific excellence:
in terms of quality and novelty of the results achieved;
contribution to addressing key scientific and technological
issues;
· European added-value:
in terms of quality of the transnational co-operation and
combination of complementary expertise and resources; and,
relevance of the findings with regard to the Community's policies
and priorities in the field of research and technological
development; extent to which the results of the research can only
be achieved if carried out at European level and beyond.
2. This short list will then be submitted to the
Descartes Prize Grand Jury. The Grand Jury will be made up of renown
figures drawn from academic, industrial and public life, reflecting
the broadest spectrum of scientific disciplines. They will interview
(in presence of the presidents of the thematic panels) the
coordinators of the finalist projects in person. Finally, the Grand
Jury will propose the definitive list of projects they have selected
for the Descartes Prize to be laureate or finalist. This list must
not necessarily include all the teams proposed by the president of
the panels in the shortlist.
Applications will be assessed in a two-stage process:
1. Firstly, applications will be submitted to panels of
relevant experts, who will assess the applications and propose a
shortlist to be considered for the prize.
2. Secondly, and on the basis of the above-mentioned shortlist,
the presidents of the panels will meet and decide on the number
and amount of prizes (within the budgetary limits set in the call
for proposals). It will be possible to award two or more prizes
within the same category.
For further information
please visit the following CORDIS page:
http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call
Descartes Prizes: 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000
|
