Global Energy Prize Int'l Award Committee to name 2020 winners
MOSCOW. Sept 7 (Interfax) - The Global Energy Prize International Award Committee led by Nobel Prize winner Rae Kwon Chung will choose the 2020 winners on Monday.
The winners will be announced at the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of Cosmonautics in Kaluga on Tuesday, Global Energy Association President Sergei Brilev told Interfax in an exclusive interview.
"The prize has entered a new stage. The radical revision of the GR and PR strategy carried out by the new management has delivered an important result: the number of nominations grew from 39 last year to 78 this year. There were nominees from a dozen countries last year, and 20, including such newcomers to the nomination cycle as South Africa, Brazil, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, this year," Brilev said.
There are scientists from the United States, China, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Greece, and Denmark on the shortlist for the Global Energy Prize 2020.
There have been three categories for nominations since 2019, namely, Traditional Energy, Non-Traditional Energy, and New Ways of Energy Application. On the shortlist for the first nomination are Richard J. Goldstein (the United States), Deming Wang (China), Carlo Rubbia (Italy), Zhao Yang Dong (Australia), and Jing Liang He (China). On the shortlist for the second nomination are Peidong Yang (the United States), Adolf Goetzberger (Germany), Jay Keasling (the United States), Piotr Zelenai (the United States), and Masahiro Watanabe (Japan). The shortlist for the third nomination includes Eli Yablonovitch (the United States), Nikolaos Hatziargyriou (Greece), Xinguo Yu (Australia), Andrew Bruce Holms (Australia), and Henrik Lund (Denmark).
"Of course, it's a pity that there are no Russians on the list. Russians haven't always been laureates in previous years either. But taking a fresh look at the Global Energy trajectory, I dare say that whenever Russians appeared on the shortlist or were named laureates, these were scientists from older generations, who made their names back in the Soviet era. Now it looks like even young guys aren't accustomed to writing in English. Therefore, experts are making their first acquaintances with them. There are also problems with the way the applications are filed: they rely on absolutely old fashioned, informal methods and connections," Brilev said, adding that the association might focus on assistance in the correct filing of applications during the next stage.
Since 2003, the prize has been won by 39 scientists from 13 countries, including Australia, Austria, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Russia, the United States, Ukraine, France, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan. The prize fund amounts to 39 million rubles.
Last year's ceremony was held in October, on the sidelines of Russian Energy Week in Moscow.