The Prince of Asturias Foundation

Presentation of the Annual Report of the Prince of Asturias Foundation

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:55:56 +0200

Further information

The new format offers complete information on the Foundation’s activities and its economic/financial situation.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation has presented its Annual Report to TRH the Prince and Princess of Asturias and the members of the Foundation’s Boards of Trustees, as well as in a breakfast briefing with the media.

The new format, which is more visual than the previous one in both design and content, provides comprehensive information on the activities of the Foundation and its economic/financial situation. This is reflected in the quantity, quality and relevance of the information provided so as to adapt to the Principles of Good Practice established by the European Foundation Centre, of which the Prince of Asturias is a member.

The same principles in matters of communication have been applied to the website, where it is now possible to consult the Foundation’s Statutes and Founding Charter, as well as full profiles of the members of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation and the Annual Report.

The profound renewal of the Annual Report undertaken this year supposes an important development, meeting the international standards of good governance, accountability and transparency set by the European Foundation Centre, the Global Reporting Initiative and Corporate Commitment Foundation.

Impact study

In addition to presenting the Report, the Foundation has released a study, carried out by Deloitte, on the economic impact generated by the institution’s activities.

As reflected in the report’s findings, the activities organised by the Foundation in 2010 represented a total expenditure of all the actors involved (Foundation, attendees, media, advertising, artists, teaching staff, etc.) of 6.4 million Euros, 93% of which stayed in Spain, which supposes an expenditure of 5.9 million Euros. This expenditure has contributed to generating 8.11 million Euros of GDP and to the safeguarding of 212 direct, indirect and induced jobs.

The Principality of Asturias is the recipient of 77% of said expenditure, which represents a contribution of 6.2 million Euros to the GDP and 160 jobs safeguarded in Asturias.

The study also concludes that for every euro received by the institution in grants, it generates 6.8 Euros of overall GDP and that the total return via taxes amounted to 575,826 Euros in 2010.

The report also includes an economic assessment of the impact of the news generated by the Foundation in the media, which came to more than 45 million Euros in the year the study was conducted.

Six of the eight international awards convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation have now been bestowed in what is their thirty-second annual edition

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:00:48 +0200

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The Prince of Asturias Awards for Sports and for Concord will be announced in September.

The 2012 Prince of Asturias Award Juries met in Oviedo during May and June, except for the Sports and Concord Juries, which are to meet in September.

Excerpts from the Minutes of the Juries

The Jury for the Arts opened the thirty-second edition of the Prince of Asturias Awards. The Award was conferred on the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, “an acknowledged master in both the academic and professional field, Moneo leaves his own mark on each of his creations, at the same time as combining aesthetics with functionality, especially in the airy interiors that act as an impeccable setting for great works of culture and the spirit”.

The Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was conferred on the American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, “who has a profound knowledge of Greek thought, for her contribution to the Humanities, the Philosophy of Law and Politics and for her ethical conception of economic development”.

The Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities was conferred on the Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. According to the Minutes of the Jury, “Miyamoto is not only the father of the modern video game; thanks to his great imagination he has managed to create virtual dreams that enable millions of people of all ages to interact, generating new forms of communication and relationship capable of bridging ideological, ethnic and geographic boundaries”.

The Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research was conferred on the British biologist Sir Gregory Winter and the American pathologist Richard A. Lerner “for their decisive contributions to the field of immunology and, in particular, for obtaining antibodies of major therapeutic value. As a result of their research, it is now possible to treat degenerative diseases and tumours with specifically designed antibodies, opening up new avenues for personalized medicine, preventive medicine and other applications such as chemical catalysis”.

The Prince of Asturias Award for Literature was conferred on the US writer Philip Roth. According to the Minutes of the Jury, “characters, events and plots form a complex view of contemporary reality torn between reason and feeling, such as the sign of the times and the sense of unease about the present. His literary quality is displayed in his fluid, incisive writing”.

Finally, the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation was conferred on the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, “considered one of the world’s largest humanitarian networks, whose mission is to prevent and alleviate human suffering, protect life and health and ensure respect for the dignity of the people, especially in times of armed conflict and in situations of crisis and need”.

Each of the Prince of Asturias Awards –conferred for the first time in 1981– comprises a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolising the Award, a cash prize of € 50,000, a diploma and an insignia. The Awards Ceremony, presided over by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias, will be held in Oviedo in the autumn.

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:23:05 +0200

Further information

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has been bestowed with the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, as made public in Oviedo by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

The Jury for this Award –convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by Gustavo Suárez Pertierra and composed of Pedro Alonso Fernández, Enrique Barón Crespo, José María Bergareche Busquet, Eugenia Bieto Caubet, Silvia Escobar Moreno, Jorge de Esteban Alonso, Gloria Fernández-Lomana García, Enrique Fernández-Miranda y Lozana, Duke of Fernandez-Miranda, Isabel Gómez-Acebo y Duque de Estrada, Ricardo Martí Fluxá, José María Martín Patino, Jaime Montalvo Correa, Luis Javier Navarro Vigil, Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Marta Reynal-Querol, Rafael Sánchez-Barriga Fernández, Luis Sánchez-Merlo y Ruiz and Alicia Castro Masaveu (acting as secretary).

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is considered the largest humanitarian network in the world. Its mission is to prevent and alleviate human suffering, protect life and health and ensure respect for people in times of armed conflict and other emergencies. The germ of the Red Cross was conceived when Henry Dunant, following the Battle of Solferino (Italy) in 1859, organised people to help more than 40,000 people who lay dead or wounded without any medical attendance or basic care. He consequently proposed the creation of national relief societies to care for those wounded in the field, thus pointing the way to the future Geneva Conventions.

The International Movement soon evolved towards its three current lines of work: humanitarian aid to victims of armed conflicts, humanitarian aid to victims of natural and other types of disasters in peacetime and preventive action in favour of social welfare and quality of life.

The Red Cross came into being in 1863 when five Geneva citizens, including Dunant, founded the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which was later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross. The following year, 12 governments adopted the first Geneva Convention guaranteeing aid to the wounded on the battlefield and defining medical services as “neutral”. Henry Dunant’s work was recognized in 1901 with the first Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with Frédéric Passy.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, present in 186 countries and supported by over 100 million volunteers, is composed of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and 187 National Societies. Each of these has an independent legal identity, structure and mandate, although they all share seven basic principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

They meet every two years in what is known as the Council of Delegates, a forum that examines the strategy of the Movement, discusses global humanitarian issues, studies strategic issues and takes decisions. This Council is not a governing body as such, as the Movement has no central command, although it does have a deliberative body: the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The International Conference meets every four years, irrespective of whether it may be convened at other times, and brings together representatives of the three components of the Movement and the 194 States parties to the Geneva Conventions, as well as observers from other humanitarian organisations and the United Nations. The Standing Commission organises these conferences and is the trustee of the International Conference during the time between any two conferences.

The Movement confers the Henry Dunant Medal, the highest award in recognition of outstanding service and acts of great devotion made by one of its members to the Red Cross and Red Crescent cause. The first of these medals were bestowed in 1969. It also edits its own journal, the Red Cross, Red Crescent Magazine, which addresses issues of interest in the humanitarian field.

According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation shall be conferred on those “whose work with another or others in areas such as Public Health, Universal Education, Environmental Protection or Social and Economic Development, among others, constitutes a significant contribution at an international level”.

This year a total of 33 candidatures from Bangladesh, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Palestine, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela and Spain ran for the award.

This is the sixth of eight Prince of Asturias Awards to be bestowed this year for the thirty second. The Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts went to Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was given to American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities went to Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research was jointly bestowed on British biologist Sir Gregory Winter and American pathologist Richard A. Lerner and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature was given to American writer Philip Roth.

The Prince of Asturias Awards for Sports and Concord will be announced in September.

Each Prince of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture, representing and symbolising the Awards, a cash prize of 50,000 euros, a diploma and an insignia. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.

The jury meeting for the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:16:58 +0200

Further information

33 nominations from 27 different countries are in the running for this award, the sixth of eight international awards that are bestowed each year by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, and which are now in their thirty-second year.

The meetings of the jury responsible for awarding the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, the sixth of eight international awards that will be bestowed by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, will be held on June 12^th and 13^th. The awards will be bestowed this year for the thirty-second time in their history.

There are 32 nominations in the running for this Award from Bangladesh, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Hungary, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Palestine, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela and Spain.

Each Prince of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture, representing and symbolising the Awards, a cash prize of 50,000 euros, a diploma and an insignia.

The Jury, which is to meet at the Reconquista Hotel, will be made up of the following members:

. Pedro Alonso Fernández
. Enrique Barón Crespo
. José María Bergareche Busquet
. Eugenia Bieto Caubet
. Silvia Escobar Moreno
. Jorge de Esteban Alonso
. Gloria Fernández-Lomana García
. Enrique Fernández-Miranda y Lozana
. Isabel Gómez-Acebo y Duque de Estrada
. Ricardo Martí Fluxá
. José María Martín Patino
. Jaime Montalvo Correa
. Luis Javier Navarro Vigil
. Francisco Pinto Balsemão
. Marta Reynal-Querol
. Rafael Sánchez-Barriga Fernández
. Luis Sánchez-Merlo y Ruiz
. Gustavo Suárez Pertierra
. Alicia Castro Masaveu (secretary of the Jury)

Members of the juries will hold an initial meeting with the media at 12 noon on Tuesday 12^th in the "Salón de Consejos" of the hotel (on the first floor), immediately prior to being formally convened and starting their deliberations. The jury will then elect a president from amongst them. The Jury secretary will be appointed by the Foundation.

Their decision will be made public at 12 noon on Wednesday 13^th in the Salón Covadonga of the hotel (on the ground floor), and jury members will then be available for interviews.

The reading of the jury’s decision will be broadcast live for more than 150 countries via the main national and international radio and television channels. The signal will be openly transmitted via Hispasat satellite (America and Europe). In addition, there will be a live Internet broadcast at the Foundation's website.

EUROPA
Satellite: Hispasat 1E
Orbital Position: 30º West
Transponder: 87
RX Frequency: 11582.0 MHz
Band: Ku
Polarization: Horizontal
Symbol Rate: 4.444 MSymbols
F.E.C.: 3/4
Coding: QPSK MPEG 2 DVB
Norma: PAL

AMERICA
Satellite: Hispasat 1E
Orbital Position: 30º West
Transponder: 133
RX Frequency: 12052 MHz
Band: Ku
Polarization: Vertical
Symbol Rate: 27500 MSymbols
F.E.C.: 3/4
Codec: QPSK MPEG 2 DVB
Norma: PAL

Phone: + 34 91 512 9450/ 9498

TWITTER

Official account: @fpa_es
Prince of Asturias Awards official hashtag: #princeasturiasawards

Philip Roth, Prince of Asturias Award for Literature

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:38:54 +0200

Further infotmation

The US writer Philip Roth has been bestowed with the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, as made public today in Oviedo by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

The Jury for this Award –convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by José Manuel Blecua Perdices and composed of Luis María Anson Oliart, Juan José Armas Marcelo, Xuan Bello Fernández, Blanca Berasátegui Garaizábal, Amelia Castilla Alcolado, Juan Cruz Ruiz, José Luis García Martín, Álex Grijelmo García, Manuel Llorente Manchado, Rosa Navarro Durán, Soledad Puértolas Villanueva, Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, Fernando Sánchez Dragó, Diana Sorensen, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán and Román Suárez Blanco (acting as secretary).

This nomination was proposed by Michael Göring, Chairman of the Board of the ZEIT-Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius Foundation (Germany).

Philip Roth was born in Newark (New Jersey, USA) in 1933. He attended Bucknell University and then the University of Chicago, where he completed his M.A. and taught English Literature. He subsequently taught creative writing at both Iowa and Princeton and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He retired from teaching in 1992 to devote himself entirely to writing. He is considered the most representative writer of the so-called Jewish School of the North American novel.

His first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), a book of stories about Jewish life in America, placed him in the forefront of success and literary prestige in his country. The short story that lends its title to the book was made into a film in 1969. In Letting Go (1962), he recounts the agony of a young Jewish professor who is torn between reason and feelings. Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) is written in the form of an autobiography and recounts the sexual life of Alexander Portnoy through a monologue from his psychiatrist’s couch. The novels The Breast (1972) and The Great American Novel (1973) marked a shift towards fantasy literature, while My Life as a Man (1974) noted a return to more introspective themes. The books The Ghost Writer (1979), Zuckerman Unbound (1981), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), The Human Stain (2000) and Exit Ghost (2007) recount the life and career of the writer and central character Nathan Zuckerman. His most recent books are: Shop Talk: a Writer and His Colleagues and Their Works (2003), The Plot against America (2005), Everyman (2006), The Humbling (2009) and Nemesis (2010).

The only living writer whose works are being published in their entirety by The Library of America, Philip Roth won the USA’s major literary awards during the 1990s: the National Book Critics Circle Award (1987 and 1992), the Faulkner Award (1993 and 2000) and the National Book Award (1960 and 1995). In 1997, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel American Pastoral. He also received the Czech Republic’s Karel Capek (1994) and Franz Kafka (2001) Awards. Outstanding among the recent awards with which he has been distinguished are the Prix Médicis for best foreign novel (France, 2002), the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (UK, 2005) and the Nabokov Award (USA, 2006). In 2007, he received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for Everyman, and the PEN/Bellow Award. He holds the National Arts Club Medal of Honor (USA, 1991), the National Medal of Arts (USA, 1998), the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001) and the Medal of the National Book Foundation (2002) for his contribution to American literature. Roth received the Man Booker International Prize in 2011.

This year a total of 24 candidatures from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, China, France, Guatemala, Holland, Ireland, Japan, Macedonia, Portugal, Rumania, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, United States and Spain ran for the award.

This is the fifth of eight Prince of Asturias Awards to be bestowed this year for the thirty second time. The Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts went to Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was given to American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities went to Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research was jointly bestowed on British biologist Sir Gregory Winter and the American pathologist Richard A. Lerner. The Award for International Cooperation will be made public next week. The Prince of Asturias Awards for Sports and Concord will be announced in September.

Each Prince of Asturias Award comprises a diploma, an insignia, a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolising the Awards and a cash prize of 50,000 euros. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.

The jury meeting for the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:50:47 +0200

Más Información

24 nominations from 19 different countries are in the running for this award, the fifth of eight international awards that are bestowed each year by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, and which are now in their thirty-second year.

The meetings of the jury responsible for awarding the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the fifth of eight international awards that will be bestowed by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, will be held on June 5^th and 6^th. The awards will be bestowed this year for the thirty-second time in their history.

There are 24 nominations in the running for this Award from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, China, France, Guatemala, Holland, Ireland, Japan, Macedonia, Portugal, Rumania, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, United States and Spain.

Each Prince of Asturias Award comprises a diploma, an insignia, a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolising the Awards and a cash prize of 50,000 euros.

The Jury, which is to meet at the Reconquista Hotel, will be made up of the following members:

. Luis María Anson Oliart
. Juan José Armas Marcelo
. Xuan Bello Fernández
. Blanca Berasátegui Garaizábal
. José Manuel Blecua Perdices
. Amelia Castilla Alcolado
. Juan Cruz Ruiz
. José Luis García Martín
. Álex Grijelmo García
. Manuel Llorente Manchado
. Rosa Navarro Durán
. Soledad Puértolas Villanueva
. Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente
. Fernando Sánchez Dragó
. Diana Sorensen
. Sergio Vila-Sanjuán
. Román Suárez Blanco (secretary)

Members of the juries will hold an initial meeting with the media at 12 noon on Tuesday 5^th in the "Salón de Consejos" of the hotel (on the first floor), immediately prior to being formally convened and starting their deliberations. The jury will then elect a president from amongst them. The Jury secretary will be appointed by the Foundation.

Their decision will be made public at 12 noon on Wednesday 6^th in the Salón Covadonga of the hotel (on the ground floor), and jury members will then be available for interviews.

Phone: + 34 91 512 9450/ 9498

TWITTER

Official account: @fpa_es
Prince of Asturias Awards official hashtag: #princeasturiasawards

Gregory Winter and Richard A. Lerner, Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:24:15 +0200

Further information

The researchers Gregory Winter and Richard A. Lerner have been bestowed with the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, as made public today in Oviedo by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

The Jury for this Award –convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar and was composed of Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturáin, Antonio Fernández-Rañada Menéndez de Luarca, Luis Fernández-Vega Sanz, Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal, Santiago Grisolía García, María del Rosario Heras Celemín, Bernardo Hernández González, Emilio Lora-Tamayo D’ocón, José Antonio Martínez Álvarez, Petra Mateos-Aparicio Morales, Amador Menéndez Velázquez, Ginés Morata Pérez, Enrique Moreno González, César Nombela Cano, Eduardo Punset Casals, Marta Sanz-Solé, Manuel Toharia Cortés y Vicente Gotor Santamaría (acting as secretary).

This candidature was put forward by Sir Paul Nurse, 2001 Nobel Prize for Medicine and president of The Royal Society, an institution that received the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities; Paul Greengard, 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine; and Peter Lawrence, 2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

The researchers Gregory Winter and Richard A. Lerner stand at the forefront of research on the immune system. The advances in the use of antibodies as therapeutic tools have provided new ways of preventing and treating immune disorders, degenerative diseases and different types of tumours. In many cases, the use of antibodies has alleviated the suffering of patients and has halted the progression of the disease. These researchers have managed to create a synthetic immune system in the test tube, as well as demonstrating its preventive and therapeutic potential due to exceeding the natural antibody repertoire the human body can generate.

Sir Gregory Winter (UK, 1951) studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and undertook his PhD studies at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the Medical Research Council (MRC), an institution of which he has been deputy director. He was appointed Master of Trinity College in 2011 and is due to take office in July 2012.

Within the LMB, Winter has been one of the leading biochemists in innovative techniques for creating monoclonal therapeutic antibodies and one of the pioneers in the development of techniques for the humanization of these antibodies, a key step for the human immune system not to identify them as foreign agents. He holds numerous patents and, in addition to being scientific advisor to several genetic engineering firms, was the founder in 1989 of Cambridge Antibody Technology, a biotechnology company promoted by the LMB to market these antibodies, including adalimumab for treating rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. He also founded the companies Domantis in 2000 and Bicycle Therapeutics in 2009.

Commander of the British Empire and a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences of the United Kingdom, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and the Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, Winter has received the Louis Jeantet Prize for Medicine (Switzerland, 1989), the Emil von Behring Prize (Germany, 1990), the Milan Award (Italy, 1990), the Scheele Award of the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (1994), the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine (Saudi Arabia, 1995), the Biochemical Society Award (UK, 2006) and the BioIndustry Association Award (UK, 2008), among other distinctions.

Richard Alan Lerner (Chicago, USA, 1938) studied medicine at Northwestern University and Stanford, earning his PhD at the latter in 1964. Following internship at the Palo Alto Stanford Hospital in 1965, he began his career in research and teaching in the Department of Experimental Pathology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (California), an institution of which he was president from 1991 to 2012. He is currently the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Immunochemistry in the Department of Molecular Biology at Scripps and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology.

Lerner was the architect of the most important advance since the discovery of monoclonal antibodies a quarter century ago: the conception, design and creation of combinatorial antibody libraries, currently the most widely used of all libraries in the field of biochemistry and which enabled a broadening of the scope of action of the immune system. Lerner set the stage in an article published in Science in 1989 and all the advances produced in the change in combinatorial libraries derived directly or indirectly from this article. Furthermore, in 1991, Lerner identified the essence of the production of antibodies without immunization and his method has remained the most efficient way to produce fully human antibodies. Moreover, Lerner has been a pioneer in the development of what are known as catalytic antibodies, a strategy to accelerate and catalyse chemical reactions for which traditional methods are not efficient.

Author of more than four hundred scientific papers, Lerner holds honorary degrees from seven universities in Europe and America. Among other awards, he has received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (Israel, 1995), the William B. Coley Award from the Cancer Research Institute (USA, 1999) and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (Germany, 2003).

According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research shall be conferred on those “whose findings, inventions and/or research studies in the fields of Mathematics, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, Chemistry, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences or Technological Sciences, including the disciplines corresponding to each of these fields and their associated techniques, represent a significant contribution to the progress and welfare of Mankind.”

This year a total of 41 candidatures from Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Spain ran for the award.

This is the fourth of eight Prince of Asturias Awards to be bestowed this year for the thirty second time. The Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts went to Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was given to American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum and the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities wen to Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The rest of awards will be announced in the coming weeks in the following order: Letters and International Cooperation, with the Sports and Concord awards being announced in September.

Each Prince of Asturias Award, which date back to 1981, comprises a diploma, a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolizing the Awards, an insignia bearing the Foundation’s coat of arms, and a cash prize of 50,000 Euros. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.

The jury meeting for the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:35:22 +0200

45 nominations from 19 different countries are in the running for this award, the fourth of eight international awards that are bestowed each year by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, and which are now in their thirty-second year.

The meetings of the jury responsible for awarding the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the fourth of eight international awards that will be bestowed by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, will be held on May 30^th and 31^st. The awards will be bestowed this year for the thirty-second time in their history.

According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research shall be conferred on those “whose findings, inventions and/or research studies in the fields of Mathematics, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, Chemistry, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences or Technological Sciences, including the disciplines corresponding to each of these fields and their associated techniques, represent a significant contribution to the progress and welfare of Mankind.”

There are 45 nominations in the running for this Award from Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Spain.

The Award is endowed with fifty thousand Euros, a sculpture created and specially donated for the awards by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia.

The Jury, which is to meet at the Reconquista Hotel, will be made up of the following members:

. Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras
. Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturáin
. Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar
. Antonio Fernández-Rañada Menéndez de Luarca
. Luis Fernández-Vega Sanz
. Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal
. Santiago Grisolía García
. María del Rosario Heras Celemín
. Bernardo Hernández González
. Emilio Lora-Tamayo D’Ocón
. José Antonio Martínez Álvarez
. Petra Mateos-Aparicio Morales
. Amador Menéndez Velázquez
. Ginés Morata Pérez
. Enrique Moreno González
. César Nombela Cano
. Eduard Punset Casals
. Marta Sanz-Solé
. Manuel Toharia Cortés
. Vicente Gotor Santamaría (secretario)

Members of the juries will hold an initial meeting with the media at 12 noon on Wednesday 30^th in the "Salón de Consejos" of the hotel (on the first floor), immediately prior to being formally convened and starting their deliberations. The jury will then elect a president from amongst them. The Jury secretary will be appointed by the Foundation.

Their decision will be made public at 12 noon on Thursday 31^st in the Salón Covadonga of the hotel (on the ground floor), and jury members will then be available for interviews.

Phone: + 34 91 512 9450/ 9498

TWITTER

Official account: @fpa_es
Prince of Asturias Awards official hashtag: #princeasturiasawards

Shigeru Miyamoto, Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:57:10 +0200

Further information

The Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has been bestowed with the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, as made public today in Oviedo by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

The Jury for the Award –convened by the Prince of Asturias Foundation– was chaired by Adela Cortina Orts and was composed of José Antonio Álvarez Gundín, José Manuel Diego Carcedo, Albert Espinosa i Puig, Javier González Ferrari, Miguel Ángel Liso Tejada, Catalina Luca de Tena y García-Conde, José Antonio Sánchez Domínguez, Ricardo Senabre Sempere, José Antonio Vera Gil, Enrique de Ybarra e Ybarra and Ramón López Vilas (acting as secretary).

This nomination was proposed by Iván Fernández Lobo, president of the Spanish Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Considered the father of the modern video game, Shigeru Miyamoto was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1952. A graduate of Kanazawa Municipal College of Art and Industrial Design (Japan), he is currently general manager of the Entertainment Analysis and Development Division at Nintendo Co. Ltd., a company he joined in 1977. Designer and producer of video games, Miyamoto is the author of the video game Mario Bros, among others, which has become the most marketed saga in history with sales of 275 million units worldwide.

He has designed over a hundred games, some of which, Mario Bros and Zelda, are considered the best in the history of video games. In particular, critics have defined the The Legend of Zelda series as “the best video game ever made”. In 1996, he marked another milestone with Super Mario 64, the first game made entirely in 3D which broke new ground by providing the characters with free-roaming movement and including independent camera views. Shigeru Miyamoto is the creator of the first console with two separate screens, one of which is a touchscreen. This console, the Nintendo DS, sold three and a half million units in Europe in one year. In 2012, it replaced the traditional audio-guide at the Louvre Museum. Noted for excluding violence from his creations, Miyamoto has revolutionized the industry with programs such as Brain Training, designed, as its name suggests, to exercise the mind; Wii Music, a music composition game that has become the most popular tool for teaching this subject and which is now used in schools around the world; and Wii Fit, an exercise routine which, for the first time ever, is controlled by the movement of the body and which has sold over thirty million units.

With these creations, he has converted the video game into a social revolution and has managed to popularize it among a sector of the population that had not previously accessed this kind of entertainment, while also making it a medium capable of bringing people together regardless of sex, age or social or cultural status. Shigeru Miyamoto conceives games as an element for family and social integration, an experience that can be shared by all which manages to move players and help them express their emotions.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (1998) and Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters (2006), Shigeru Miyamoto has also received other important distinctions. The most noteworthy of these include his naming as one of the most influential people in the world in 2008 by Time magazine (USA) and the GAME Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in 2010, at a ceremony where he was also honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship Award.

According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities shall be conferred on those “whose creative work or research in humanistic activities as a whole or in relation to the social communication media, within the framework of the sciences and disciplines that both activities comprise, represents a significant contribution to universal culture”.

This year a total of 21 candidatures from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, United States and Spain ran for the Award.

This is the third of eight Prince of Asturias Awards to be bestowed this year for the thirty-second time. The Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts went to Spanish architect Rafael Moneo and the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was given to American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. The rest of awards will be announced in the coming weeks in the following order: Technical and Scientific Research, Literature and International Cooperation, with the Sports and Concord awards being announced in September.

Each Prince of Asturias Award, which date back to 1981, comprises a diploma, a Joan Miró sculpture representing and symbolising the Awards, an insignia bearing the Foundation's coat of arms, and a cash prize of 50,000 Euros. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.

The jury meeting for the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities

>Fundación Príncipe de Asturias — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:19:24 +0200

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21 nominations from 11 different countries are in the running for this award, the third of eight international awards that are bestowed each year by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, and which are now in their thirty-second year.

The meetings of the jury responsible for awarding the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, the third of eight international awards that will be bestowed by the Prince of Asturias Foundation, will be held on May 22^nd and 23^rd. The awards will be bestowed this year for the thirty-second time in their history.

According to the Statutes of the Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Awards aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. As part of this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities shall be conferred on those “whose creative work or research in humanistic activities as a whole or in relation to the social communication media, within the framework of the sciences and disciplines that both activities comprise, represents a significant contribution to universal culture”.

There are 21 nominations in the running for this Award from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, United States and Spain.

The Award is endowed with fifty thousand Euros, a sculpture created and specially donated for the awards by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia.

The Jury, which is to meet at the Reconquista Hotel, will be made up of the following members:

.   José Antonio Álvarez Gundín
.   Adela Cortina Orts
.   José Manuel Diego Carcedo
.   Alberto Espinosa i Puig
.   Javier González Ferrari
.   Miguel Ángel Liso Tejada
.   Catalina Luca de Tena y García-Conde
.   José Antonio Sánchez Domínguez
.   Ricardo Senabre Sempere
.   José Antonio Vera Gil
.   Enrique de Ybarra e Ybarra
.   Ramón López Vilas (secretario)

Members of the juries will hold an initial meeting with the media at 12 noon on Tuesday 22^nd in the "Salón de Consejos" of the hotel (on the first floor), immediately prior to being formally convened and starting their deliberations. The jury will then elect a president from amongst them. The Jury secretary will be appointed by the Foundation.

Their decision will be made public at 12 noon on Wednesday 23^rd in the Salón Covadonga of the hotel (on the ground floor), and jury members will then be available for interviews.

Phone: + 34 91 512 9450/ 9498

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