The 2007 EURYI Awards
Dr. Martin Schnabl (34 years) has become with his project „Exploring String Field Theory - Can It Explain Quantum Birth of the Universe or Properties of Elementary Particles?“ the one of 20 winners of prestigious EURYI Awards (European Young Investigator Awards) for the year 2007.
These 20 awardees have been selected on the basis of high-level scientific peer review. The Czech Science Foundation (GACR) is responsible for the national stage of the EURYI Awards evaluation process. In the 4th Call 11 Czech applicants submitted the proposals to the GACR. In total 474 applications were submitted to the participant organisations. To the second – international – stage 113 applications have been submitted, two of them from the Czech Republic. Only extraordinary capable young researchers whose projects present an original solving of current scientific issues have succeeded in a demanding evaluation process.
The EURYI Awards is very much significant for the science development in Europe as money from this award (€ 1 million on an average) has to be applied to research just in Europe. Dr. Schnabl chose the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. for his research.
The 2007 EURYI Awards Ceremony was held on 27th September 2007 in Helsinki. The awardees received a diploma out of hands of the Nobel-laureate Dr. Tim Hunt.
The list of the 2007 awardees includes researchers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and indeed the Czech Republic. The average age of this year´s winners is 33.1 and it is the youngest group in EURYI´s history. Six of the awardees are women and it is the highest number of female winners in any year.