Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The first female winner appeared in the field of mathematical physics and transportation architecture, and the first foreign non-Chinese winner was born. On July 17, the list of winners of the Fifth Scientific Exploration Award was officially announced, and 48 young scientists were on the list. The Scientific Exploration Award is aimed at 10 fields of basic science and cutting-edge technology, supporting outstanding young scientists aged 45 and under working full-time in mainland China and Hong Kong and Macao. Each winner will receive a total bonus of 3 million yuan within five years, and is free to use the prize money.

With the announcement of the new award list, the Scientific Discovery Award has supported a total of 248 young scientists over the past five years. Han Qide, honorary president of the China Association for Science and Technology and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "the Scientific Exploration Award itself is an effective exploration of how to build a scientific reward system in China at the present stage. Practice over the past five years has proved that a series of evaluation, supervision, and release methods implemented by the "Scientific Exploration Award" that give full play to the main role of outstanding scientists are successful, and the policy of not sticking to one style to reduce talent is effective. the mechanism that the prize is completely at the discretion of the winner is attractive.' The Scientific Exploration Award has been warmly supported and supported by the vast number of scientific and technological workers, and the distribution of award-winning institutions and regions is becoming more and more extensive and diverse, and its influence is becoming greater and greater. I am pleased to learn that Tencent will fund this award for a long time. I believe that as long as we continue to sum up experience and persevere, the Scientific Exploration Award will certainly become one of the most outstanding scientific and technological awards in our country. to make outstanding contributions to the training of scientific and technological personnel and the development of scientific and technological undertakings in our country. "

The Scientific Discovery Award was established in 2018. It was co-sponsored by 14 well-known scientists, including Yang Zhenning, Rao Yi, Shi Yigong, Pan Jianwei, Xie Xiaoliang, and Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent Foundation. This is a public welfare award funded by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation and led by scientists, and it is also one of the projects funded by young scientific and technological talents with the highest amount in China. Adhering to the purpose of "facing the future, rewarding potential and encouraging exploration", the award encourages young scientific and technological talents to explore scientific "no man's land" and explore a sustained and stable investment mechanism for social support for basic research talents.

The first foreign non-Chinese winner was born, and the award color is becoming more and more diverse.

Throughout the list of this year's "Scientific Exploration Awards", several "for the first time" have brought a more diversified face to the awards, which also confirms the vigorous development of China's scientific and technological innovation and the continuous optimization of scientific research ecology.

Joseph Ryan MICHALSKI, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, became the first foreign non-Chinese winner of the Science Discovery Award in five years. His research plan on life on Mars is exciting. Mao Shude, professor of astronomy at Tsinghua University and sponsor of the Scientific Discovery Award, said: "the Scientific Discovery Award supports scientists working full-time in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, regardless of nationality. Joseph MICHALSKI, an associate professor of the University of Hong Kong, has become the first foreign non-Chinese laureate in five years, which not only adds a new color to the award, but also fully shows that with the continuous improvement of the level of basic research, China has produced a certain degree of attraction to outstanding scientific research talents all over the world. "

The Scientific Discovery Award pays special attention to the development of women scientists and young scientists and, under the same conditions, tends to the young and women. In 2023, female winners appeared for the first time in the fields of mathematical physics and traffic architecture. Peng Xinhua, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, engaged in physics research, Zhou Ying, a professor at Tongji University, and Zou Li, a professor at Dalian University of Technology, engaged in ship engineering research. Their excellent work broke people's "stereotype" of female scientists.

With the continuous expansion of the breadth and depth of the national basic scientific research layout, analyzing the institutions and regions where the winners of this year's "Scientific Exploration Award" are located, many "new faces" appear for the first time. Cities such as Maanshan City in Anhui Province and Changchun City in Jilin Province have been listed for the first time, and nine scientific research institutions, including Tongji University, Xihu University, Anhui University of Technology and Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, have their own winners for the first time.

In addition, the Scientific Exploration Award subsidizes no more than 50 young scientists every year, and 48 of them are actually funded this year, which is also the first time that the funding has not been fully subsidized. According to the Executive Committee of the Scientific Exploration Award, this year's Scientific Exploration Award fully adheres to the principle of "preferring deficiency rather than abuse", seeking truth from facts and putting people first.

There are 248 winners of the Scientific Exploration Award in five years, from 26 cities and 90 scientific research institutions, with an average age of 41, and the youngest winner is 30 years old (Huang Qianqian, a researcher at Peking University, winner in 2020). More than 75% of the winners have studied or worked in top overseas universities and research institutions.

Pan Jianwei, executive vice president of the University of Science and Technology of China, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and sponsor of the Scientific Exploration Award, said: "the competition for the Exploration Award is very fierce, and the judges have experienced difficult and even painful choices." even many excellent applicants have to become 'beads'. On the whole, the quality of the winners has remained stable in the past few years, and we can also see that outstanding young scientists continue to grow up, and the Scientific Exploration Award will continue to subsidize the group of outstanding young scientists in China. They are expected to become a new driving force for the country's basic research. "

Jin Li, president of Fudan University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also said: "the Scientific Exploration Award is as energetic as the young scientists it subsidizes. It ensures that young people dare to gain a foothold in the endless frontiers of science, but also encourages them to forge ahead in the'no man's land 'and challenge long-cycle, high-risk and subversive research work."

The winners made great efforts to explore, "from zero to one" is fruitful.

At the end of June, the news "Chinese Heavenly Eye 'saw' the Nahertz gravitational wave" and "brushing the screen". Li Kejia, a researcher at Peking University, the author of the paper, was the winner of the "Scientific Exploration Award." in February, the three major mathematical awards in China were announced in Wuhan. Liu Ruochuan, a professor at Peking University, winner of the 19th Shiing-Shen Chern Mathematics Award, is the winner of the Scientific Exploration Award. The latest co-selection of academicians of the two academies, Song Baoliang, a professor at Wuhan University, and Park Shilong, a professor at Peking University, are the youngest new academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and they are also winners of the Scientific Exploration Award.

Over the past five years, the winners of the Scientific Exploration Award have devoted themselves to exploration, and "from zero to one" has been fruitful. Facing the frontier of world science and technology, from proving the superiority of quantum computing in the prototype "Nine chapters" to revealing the evolution and migration history of Chinese population in recent ten thousand years by ancient genome analysis, and facing the main economic battlefield, from effectively improving the life of perovskite solar cells to breaking through the catalytic activity limit of vehicle fuel cells for the first time. In the face of the major needs of the country, from the multi-person achievements applied to the domestic large aircraft C919, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, to the soft deep-sea robot to achieve 10,000-meter undersea drive, and for people's life and health, from China's first set of human lung magnetic resonance imaging equipment to the world's first endoscopic navigation breast-conserving surgery. As of June this year, a total of 7 winners have been selected as the "Top Ten Scientific Progress in China". A total of 29 papers have been published in the well-known scientific journals CNS (Cell, Nature, Science). A total of 839 SCI papers have thanked the Tencent Foundation or the Scientific Exploration Award.

Wu Hequan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and sponsor of the "Scientific Exploration Award," commented: "it can be said that these young scientists are good at thinking, dare to explore, dare to innovate, are willing to do scientific research, and are loyal to the motherland. They pay attention to science and exploration, emancipate their minds and have the courage to open up; they are also closely combined with the strategic needs of the country and unswervingly promote economic and social development. They live up to their youth and have grown into the backbone of the country's scientific and technological undertakings, with fruitful results and promising potential. "

The winners of the Scientific Exploration Award submit an one-page report on the progress of scientific research every year. When talking about the impact of funding, "more confidence in carrying out exploratory research", "more exploratory research" and "more time to devote to scientific research" have become the most concentrated options. "strength" and "determination" are their favorite "keywords". Zhou Huanping, a 2019 award winner and professor at Peking University, said frankly: "the funding gives me the strength to shift my focus from short and fast projects to topics with higher uncertainty but greater significance." Wang Biokai, a 2020 winner and professor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, also said: "the greatest significance of the Scientific Exploration Award is to let researchers return to scientific research itself, uphold the spirit of pure exploration, and pursue the truth, goodness and beauty of scientific research. More determined to try, to delve into, to conquer."

"to promote continuous breakthroughs in original innovation, we need to constantly cultivate the soil of scientific research and innovation, and build an academic culture and scientific research ecosystem that encourages exploration and tolerates failure. The 'Scientific Exploration Award' has been established five years ago, which has blazed a new path in this regard." Ding Kuiling, president of Shanghai Jiaotong University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.

Continuous optimization of awards to explore innovative models of basic research supported by social funds

In 2020, the "Scientific Exploration Award" opened up applications to Hong Kong and Macao for the first time, expanding the scope of funding; in 2022, the award increased the field of medical science, responding to the appeal of the scientific community; and in the same year, a new Cornerstone Science Foundation was established to "take the profession to a higher level." As one of the highest funded projects for young scientific and technological talents in China, the Scientific Exploration Award has been in operation for five years, adhering to the principle of "scientists are in charge" in talent selection, and has been continuously optimized in top-level design, award evaluation, daily operation and other aspects, and reputation and prestige have accumulated rapidly.

Li Bacon, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, former president of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and sponsor of the Scientific Exploration Award, said: "the recognition of the gold content of the 'Scientific Exploration Award' by the scientific community has increased year by year. One of the important reasons is that we must be objective and impartial in the evaluation and will not tolerate unhealthy tendencies. Many senior scientists have invested a lot of time and energy, and our common expectation is to create a private basic scientific research award program that can stand the test of time. "

The Scientific Exploration Award, which has been running for five years, is also continuing to explore an innovative model in which social funds can steadily support basic scientific research over a long period of time. Zhang Yitang, professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and founder of the Scientific Discovery Award, said: "the Scientific Exploration Award has achieved very good results over the past five years, not only encouraging young scientists to scale scientific heights courageously. More importantly, through its own influence, it has aroused the enthusiasm of society and enterprises in investing in basic research and promoting scientific innovation."

For this reason, the Scientific Exploration Award has received enthusiastic participation and support from the scientific and educational circles. Over the past five years, more than 1300 academicians from various countries and the presidents of more than 50 famous universities have participated in the nomination, recommendation and evaluation of the Science Exploration Awards. More than 40 winners of the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, Fields Award and other international awards have participated in the nomination and recommendation stage.

Qian Yingyi, a senior professor of liberal arts at Tsinghua University and chairman of the supervisory committee of the "Scientific Exploration Award," said: "the 'Scientific Exploration Award' accepts a wide range of talents and acts of merit, not only achievements, but only potential, facing the future, and focusing on young people. The Supervisory Committee believes that over the past five years, the purpose and principles of the awards have been strictly maintained, the evaluation procedures have met the prescribed requirements, the bonuses have been fully implemented as scheduled, and the Scientific Exploration Award has achieved its original intention at the time of its establishment. "

The Science Discovery Award covers ten fields, and the 248 winners have the broadest "science spectrum". In addition to financial support, over the past five years, the Science Discovery Award has continued to build a high-level, interdisciplinary interaction and exchange platform for young scientific and technological talents through the "Young scientists 50 ²Forum", closed-door academic exchanges and other forms. When young scientists exchange insights and ideas, they are also communicating through "addition", bringing about the "multiplication" effect of the expansion of scientific boundaries, providing a new "acceleration" for exploration and innovation.

"in the five years since its establishment, the Scientific Exploration Award has received strong support from the scientific community, played a positive role in encouraging and supporting young scientific talents, and gradually embarked on an innovative path for social forces to fund basic research and cutting-edge technological exploration." Ma Huateng said: "helping basic research is a long-term commitment of Tencent to transcend commercial boundaries." The Scientific Exploration Award and the subsequent establishment of the New Cornerstone Fellowship Project are also a further echo of the era of great science in China. We hope that in the future, young scientists will continue to explore the frontiers of science, expand unknown boundaries, achieve more world-renowned research results, and provide an important driving force for the sustainable development of human society. "

Attached reference:

Introduction of "New Cornerstone Science Foundation"

"New Cornerstone Science Foundation", the full name of "Shenzhen New Cornerstone Science Foundation", initiated by Tencent, invested 10 billion yuan in 10 years and operated independently. It is currently one of the largest public welfare science foundations in China. The foundation was registered in Shenzhen Civil Affairs Bureau in August 2022 and is a non-public offering foundation.

The New Cornerstone Science Foundation has set up scientific research funding projects such as the Scientific Exploration Award and the New Cornerstone researcher Project to support outstanding scientists to devote themselves to research and explore innovative models in which social funds can steadily support basic scientific research in the long term. In addition, the foundation sets up a high-level interdisciplinary academic exchange platform, promotes interdisciplinary and cross-regional scientific exchanges and cooperation, and creates an academic atmosphere for free exploration.

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