Female mathematicians have won awards, and AI awards will not be added for the time being. Here are the new highlights of this year’s Scientific Exploration Awards
Author：Eve Cole
Update Time：2024-11-23 16:24:01
"I am engaged in the research of 'deep rock mechanics', and it can be said that I have an indissoluble bond with rocks in my life. The cutting-edge exploration of deep earth engineering science is basically carried out in the rocks of the earth's crust, and the deeper you go, the deeper you go. Difficult." On October 19, at the 2024 Scientific Exploration Award Ceremony, Zhang Ru, winner in the field of energy and environment and professor at Sichuan University, introduced her research to the crowd. This is an exchange meeting for domestic basic science researchers. Before the award ceremony, Tencent Senior Vice President and Chief Talent Officer Xi Dan, and Wang Zhizhen, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, researcher at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and chairman of the New Cornerstone Science Foundation Supervisory Committee, accepted interviews with Beijing News, Shell Finance and other media and shared Various changes in the Scientific Exploration Award since its establishment six years ago, and discussions on issues such as the future direction of basic scientific research funding.
A group photo of guests at the Scientific Exploration Award 2024 award ceremony. Photo provided by the organizer. The age limit for women to apply has been raised to 48 years old. 7 of the 49 awardees this year are 14 well-known scientists including Yang Zhenning, Rao Yi, Pan Jianwei, Gao Wen, Shi Yigong, Xie Xiaoliang, and Tencent founder Ma Huateng, a public welfare award co-initiated in 2018 and operated by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation, targets basic science and cutting-edge technology and funds young scientific and technological workers in the "exploration period". As the chairman of the New Cornerstone Science Foundation Supervisory Committee, Wang Zhizhen introduced that this year’s Scientific Exploration Award has added a review link in the evaluation process. "We have supervision at every stage of the selection." She also introduced that the New Cornerstone Science Foundation will establish a supervisory committee in 2024 (previously supervised by the "Scientific Exploration Award" Project Supervisory Committee). Starting this year, this supervisory committee Supervise the entire selection process of the Scientific Exploration Award from preliminary screening, preliminary evaluation, re-evaluation to final evaluation. She said that once the oversight committee receives the report, it will conduct a serious and serious investigation of the scientists. If a candidate indeed commits any violation of regulations, his or her review qualification will be cancelled, and the candidate will not be able to apply for the same award again in the next two years. There are 49 recipients of the 2024 Science Exploration Award, including 7 women, namely Shan Peng, Yang Xiaofei, and Zhou Shuyun from mathematical physics, Tian Ye from life sciences, Wang Feng from medical sciences, Fang Lu from information electronics, energy and environment Zhang Ru. Among them, Shan Peng is also the first female mathematical scientist to win the Science Discovery Award since its establishment. This made Wang Zhizhen very excited. She has always been concerned about the proportion of female winners. “People usually have a somewhat incorrect view of mathematics and physics, thinking that it may be difficult for girls. But this year’s situation shows that even in the fields of mathematics and physics, girls can do it (very well). " Female scientific workers often face the pressure of family care work that puts scientific research on. In view of this, the Scientific Exploration Award will raise the application age limit for women from 45 to 48 starting this year. "This is very beneficial to the development of women's issues." Wang Zhizhen said. She emphasized that under the same conditions, the Scientific Exploration Award will give priority to women or young people. Official website data shows that the current male-to-female ratio of Science Exploration Award winners is about 9:1. How to improve this situation? Wang Zhizhen believes that women’s self-confidence is very important. "Girls can do the same things as boys. Every girl can do it. The premise is that you must have self-confidence and be self-reliant." In addition to the selection mechanism and the gender ratio of winners, this year's Science Exploration Award also has a tendency in project selection. changed. Xi Dan said in the interview that this year’s funding direction is more inclined to scientists who have the courage to explore original fields. For example, Liu Lianqing, a laureate in the field of advanced manufacturing and a researcher at the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted research on life-like robots. “If there are already many people working on a field, it may already have a lot of funding,” Xi Dan said. He believes that people who are willing to venture into areas that others dare not touch or that are completely new are often the loneliest and most in need of support. Regardless of the need to add awards in the field of artificial intelligence, funding for the first winners was completed last year. Artificial intelligence is one of the most active disciplines in cutting-edge science, and has also become a "popular candidate" for this year's Nobel Prize. This year's Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry were awarded to scientists who have studied artificial intelligence. The trend of artificial intelligence integrating with other disciplines is becoming increasingly obvious. Regarding this feature, Xi Dan said that as the development of artificial intelligence accelerates, it will become a basic tool for scientific research in the future and an important foundation for the entire scientific field. But he also revealed that the Scientific Exploration Award is led by scientists in talent selection, and everyone agreed that the Scientific Exploration Award does not need to set up an award specifically in the field of artificial intelligence for the time being. "Judging from the current underlying composition of the Scientific Exploration Award, the field of information electronics basically overlaps with artificial intelligence. I believe that in the future, more scientists who will make breakthroughs in artificial intelligence research may emerge in the field of information electronics." This year's five winners in the field of information electronics Among them, the research directions of three awardees are obviously related to artificial intelligence. Basic science researchers are faced with the difficulty of transforming their results. This type of research usually requires a long investment of time and may not become a technology hotspot of industry concern. Xi Dan said that as a basic scientific research funding project, the Scientific Exploration Award will not put too much pressure on the recipients in terms of delivering academic results. He emphasized that the Scientific Exploration Award does not value "hats", qualifications, or past achievements, "but rather values the person's scientific research and exploration capabilities and potential in research directions." The funding period for the Scientific Exploration Award winners is five years, and funding for the first 50 winners was completed last year. What are the important scientific outputs of the funded recipients currently? Taking publication in top international journals as an example, Xi Dan revealed that previous winners have published many heavyweight articles in top journals around the world. What impressed him deeply was that among the first winners, a deep-sea soft robot developed by a scientist has successfully gone down to the sea thousands of miles below to operate. This scientific research result has also been included in Nature. Tencent has pledged to invest 10 billion yuan in funding domestic basic scientific research within ten years. "This 10 billion yuan has been invested in the New Cornerstone Science Foundation." Xi Dan said. He revealed that Tencent is also currently discussing whether to invest more in the New Cornerstone Science Foundation from its profits.
