As the second season of VinFuture Prize’s Award Ceremony draws closer, Prof. Sir Richard Henry Friend — Chair of the VinFuture Prize Council — revealed for the first time the most outstanding works that will be honored and shared about the international influence of the Vietnamese-initiated global science and technology award.
Drawing international attention with impressive nominations
The VinFuture Prize award is the first Vietnamese global award in the field of science and technology. Debuted last year, VinFuture received significant attention from the global scientific community with nearly 600 nominations. This year, the number of nominations increased significantly with 970 works in various fields.
This is an impressive number, proving the immense interest from all over the world for the global science and technology prize from Vietnam.
The quality of this season’s nominations is also very remarkable. A wonderful thing to note is that many innovations are new even to the scientists in the Prize Council. Just like last year’s mRNA vaccine innovation, which won the Grand Prize of the VinFuture Prize season 1, the prize-winning innovation this year will be ground-breaking, far-reaching research with inspirational stories behind it.
“I am sure everyone will be surprised and convinced by this victory. I think surprises are always interesting. So let’s stay excited about the Award Ceremony, which is going to take place on December 20, 2022, in Hanoi.” Said Professor Friend.
A difficult process of choosing the best
The process of choosing the best among all nominations has never been easy. This year’s season has a very meaningful theme — “Reviving and Reshaping”. It is like a guide to finding the innovations and creativity that humanity really needs on the path of solving pressing global issues.
The Prize Council has worked very meticulously to ensure that it is truly groundbreaking research. But it’s also just the beginning. From our principles and specific criteria, we comprehensively assess the impacts of these breakthroughs. Another challenge is that the criteria must be customized to the specifics of each different field.
Fortunately, VinFuture has a Council of top scientists with extensive experience and highly effective works to select the most deserving ones for the Prize.
Scientific and technological collaboration for breakthrough achievements
VinFuture has been seen in a special and different way, which is to create a global connection, helping to accelerate science and technology’s progress.
Science and technology is the key to a sustainable future. Individual creativity is critical to solving global challenges. But many times, just due to the lack of connection, scientists failed to reach their destination. With its influence, VinFuture honors and promotes connections to create breakthrough achievements in science.
Take the Grand Prize of the first season as an example, which is a testament to VinFuture being one of the few science and technology awards with a comprehensive perspective, respecting and fully honoring the puzzle pieces behind each breakthrough innovation. The Covid-19 mRNA vaccine consists of two components, mRNAs and lipid nanoparticles. Two separate studies have been carried out for a long time, but it was not until last year that they were brought together in front of the public’s eye as a revolutionary product for all humanity.
That is also what VinFuture can do to break down barriers, encourage new discoveries and inspire future generations.
Inspiration
When the VinFuture Prize is announced, the world wants to know who the winners are and learn more about their stories. For young people who are contemplating career choices and aspire to achieve what they want in life, the laureates’ journey of discovery will bring especially inspiring stories.
“People often say art is creative work. As a strong believer in research coming from curiosity and the urge to learn, I think science is also a creative process. VinFuture will inspire young people to see that although science is challenging, it is a process of creativity and discovery. Not only utilizing what is already available, with science and technology, but people are also inventing and creating a future – a better and more sustainable future for humanity.”
There are many major awards internationally, but there are still no established categories for all scientific communities and the direct impact of science and technology to create a better world. VinFuture does not seek nominations to “groom” the award. VinFuture honors innovations and breakthrough inventions that bring changes to the world. “The Prize’s mission and different criteria are also the reasons why I am glad to be with VinFuture.”
Prof. Richard Friend, Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge (UK), is currently the Chair of the VinFuture Prize Council. He is one of the most influential scientists globally, with more than 140 patents and over 195,000 citations in prestigious scientific publications in the world, and he is the author/co-author of more than 1,100 scientific publications.
He was knighted by the Queen of the United Kingdom to honor outstanding contributions to physics in 2003.
In 2010, the “father” of OLED technology received the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize for the development of plastic electronics. His work on organic LEDs and other applications for organic electronics has laid the foundation for the development of flat screens, scrollable screens, and moving screens.