MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Two scientists have been awarded the first UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences. The winners are Russia's Professor Yuri Oganessian and Italy's Professor Vincenzo Balzani. The decision was made on the recommendation of an eminent international jury chaired by Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Yuri Oganessian, of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, owes the award to "breakthrough discoveries that extend the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements and for his promotion of the basic sciences at global scale," the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said on its website.
Vincenzo Balzani, an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bologna will receive the award for "the lasting impact of his outstanding scientific achievements in basic chemical sciences and his career-long efforts to promote international cooperation, science education and sustainable development."
"Professor Oganessian’s work played a leading role in the synthesis and study of new chemical elements of the periodic table. He has driven major developments in international scientific cooperation that led, inter alia, to the discovery of superheavy elements like the one with atomic number 118 named after him as Oganesson," UNESCO said.
The laureates will receive the prize at a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on November 15, during the 41st session of the Organization’s General Conference.
UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize
Established as a follow up of the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements in 2019, the UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences was created to foster scientific progress, science popularization and international cooperation in the basic sciences. The Prize honors the remarkable scientific heritage of Dimitri Mendeleev, father of the Periodic Table, whose work was fundamental to the development of chemistry, physics, biology, aeronautics, hydrodynamics, meteorology and astronomy as well as what is now termed sustainable development.
The Prize is awarded annually to two individuals for their breakthrough discoveries or outstanding innovations driving, or with potential to drive, socio-economic transformation and development of human societies, and for their dedicated promotion of basic science.