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Top global awards can do with change

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-09 08:09

The call to reform the Nobel Prize system is not new, and gained strength about a decade ago. Though the Nobel Foundation may not add new prizes in the near future, a systematic change would be good not only for the prize, but also for the development of science in the 21st century, says an article in the Beijing News. Excerpt:

In an open letter to the New Scientists magazine last month, a group of leading scientists and engineers suggested that the Nobel Foundation introduce two more prizes: one for contributions to the "global environment and public health" and the other for work in life sciences. This is necessary, they said, to "appropriately recognize future achievements, and to remain influential for another 100 years".

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But the Nobel Foundation replied that it was not possible at present. The committee has been rejecting the idea of increasing the number of prizes because it says it will cost more time and money to complete the already long selection procedure.

A number of scientists and former Nobel Prize winners proposed a systematic reform in the 100th year of the awards, in 2001. Many fundamental achievements and breakthroughs in new sciences, which have significantly changed the landscape of natural science and human life, have not received any recognition of or award from the Nobel Foundation because it covers too small a field in today's world.

In terms of natural sciences, the Nobel Prize only includes physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine, and leaves out genetics and molecular biomedicine, engineering, computer sciences and neurosciences.

Only the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel Prize Committee can usher in reform in the awarding of the most prestigious prizes.

The historic 1968 reform - the addition of the Nobel Prize in Economics - has only increased the reputation of the award, although it is endowed and established by Sveriges Riksbank.

The Nobel Prize will exert more influence and better promote human progress if it can keep pace with the development of science and the real world.

(China Daily 10/09/2009 page9)