The Francqui Prize is a prestigious Belgian scholarly and

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

Émile Francqui Émile Francqui (; 25 June 1863 in Brussels – 1 November 1935 in Brussels) was a Belgian soldier, diplomat, business man and philanthropist. Career As an orphan, Émile Francqui was sent to a military school when he was just 15 years old. ...

. Normally annually since 1933, the

Francqui Foundation The Francqui Foundation was founded in 1932 by Emile Francqui and Herbert Hoover with the goal "to further the development of higher education and scientific research in Belgium". The foundation is a private foundation under the legal form of ...

awards it in recognition of the achievements of a scholar or

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosop ...

, who at the start of the year still had to be under 50. It currently represents a sum of 250,000

Euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s and is awarded in the following three-year rotation of subjects:

exact sciences The exact sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astron ...

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

, and

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

sciences. Proposed candidates must be associated with a Belgian academic institution, in the case of a foreigner for at least ten years. The recipient is selected by a jury of eight to 14 members, none of whom may be associated with a Belgian institution. The members of the international jury vote by secret letter, and the laureate they recommend must be supported by two thirds of the assembled directors of the foundation (with a quorum of 12) or no prize would be awarded that year. The prize is meant to encourage the further work of the young laureate, rather than crown the latter's career. Recipients are asked to organise an international colloquium in the appropriate discipline the same year that he is awarded the prize, which usually leads to an international publication which enables the quality of Belgian

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

to be more widely appreciated.

Laureates of the Francqui Prize

* 1933:

Henri Pirenne Henri Pirenne (; 23 December 1862 – 24 October 1935) was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a prominent public intellectual. Pirenne made a lasting contribut ...

* 1934:

Georges Lemaître Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( ; ; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the first to t ...

* 1936: Franz Cumont * 1938:

Jacques Errera Jacques Errera (25 September 1896 – 30 March 1977) was a Belgian physicochemist, specialized in the molecular constitution of matter.Errera J, Hirshberg Y, Potentiometric analysis of pure animal proteins, Biochem. J. (1933) 027 (764–770 ...

* 1940: Pierre Nolf * 1946: François-L. Ganshof * 1946: Frans-H. van den Dungen * 1946: Marcel Florkin * 1948: Léon H. Dupriez * 1948:

Marc de Hemptinne Marc de Hemptinne ( Ghent, 1902–1986) was a Belgian physicist. He was the son of Alexandre de Hemptinne, a professor at the University of Leuven. He studied chemistry at the University of Ghent and obtained a PhD in Science in 1926. Marc de ...

* 1948: Zénon-M. Bacq * 1948:

Pol Swings Pol F. Swings (24 September 1906 – 28 October 1983) was a Belgian astrophysicist who was known for his studies of the composition and structure of stars and comets. He used spectroscopy to identify the elements in astronomical bodies, and, i ...

* 1948:

Jean Brachet Jean Louis Auguste Brachet (19 March 1909 – 10 August 1988) was a Belgian biochemist who made a key contribution in understanding the role of RNA. Life Brachet was born in Etterbeek near Brussels in Belgium, the son of Albert Brache ...

* 1949:

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and Marxist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at least five of the ...

* 1950:

Paul Harsin Paul Marie Isidore Harsin (1902–1983) was an economic and political historian who held doctorates in the humanities, social sciences, and law. He was a professor at the University of Liège for over 40 years and briefly served as president of th ...

* 1951: Henri Koch * 1952:

Florent Bureau Florent-Joseph Bureau (1906–1999) was a Belgian mathematician. He was a professor at the University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of B ...

* 1953: Claire Preaux * 1953: Etienne Lamotte * 1954: Raymond Jeener * 1955: Ilya Prigogine (

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

Chemistry 1977) * 1956: Louis Remacle * 1957:

Lucien Massart Lucien Massart (1908–1988) was a specialist in the animal and plant enzymology. He was a professor and in 1957 was awarded the Francqui Prize on Biological and Medical Sciences. In 1951, together with Edouard J. Bigwood, Jean Brachet, Christia ...

* 1958:

Léon Van Hove Léon Charles Prudent Van Hove (10 February 1924 – 2 September 1990) was a Belgian physicist and a Director General of CERN. He developed a scientific career spanning mathematics, solid state physics, elementary particle and nuclear physics ...

* 1959:

Gérard Garitte Gérard Garitte (1914–1990) was a Belgian historian and an academic at the Catholic University of Leuven and later the French-speaking University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. He raised the study of Georgian ecclesiastical li ...

* 1960:

Christian de Duve Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve (2 October 1917 – 4 May 2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisome and lysosome, for which he shared ...

(

Medicine 1974) * 1961: Adolphe Van Tiggelen * 1961: Jules Duchesne * 1962:

Chaïm Perelman Chaïm Perelman (born Henio (or Henri) Perelman; sometimes referred to mistakenly as Charles Perelman) (20 May 1912, Warsaw – 22 January 1984, Brussels) was a Polish-born philosopher of law, who studied, taught, and lived most of his life in ...

* 1963: Hubert Chantrenne * 1964:

Paul Ledoux Paul Ledoux (8 August 1914 – 6 October 1988) was a Belgian astrophysicist best known for his work on stellar stability and variability. With Theodore Walraven, he co-authored a seminal work on stellar oscillations. In 1964 Ledoux was awar ...

* 1965: Roland Mortier * 1966: Henri G. Hers * 1967: José J. Fripiat * 1968: Jules Horrent * 1969: Isidoor Leusen * 1970: Radu Balescu * 1971: Georges Thines * 1972: Jean-Edouard Desmedt * 1973: Pierre Macq * 1974:

Raoul van Caenegem Raoul Charles, Baron Van Caenegem (14 July 1927 – 15 June 2018), was a Belgian historian and noted expert in the field of European legal history. Biography Raoul Van Caenegem was born in Ghent on 14 July 1927. He became a professor at the Uni ...

* 1975: René Thomas * 1976:

Walter Fiers Walter Fiers (31 January 1931 in Ypres, West Flanders – 28 July 2019 in Destelbergen) was a Belgian molecular biologist. He obtained a degree of Engineer for Chemistry and Agricultural Industries at the University of Ghent in 1954, and started ...

* 1977:

Jacques Taminiaux Jacques Taminiaux (; 29 May 1928 – 7 May 2019) was a Belgian philosopher and professor at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Biography Born in Seneffe, Taminiaux studied law and philosophy at the Catholic Univers ...

* 1978:

Jacques Nihoul Jacques Nihoul (6 June 1937 – 6 May 2021Monsieur Jacques Nihoul
) was a Belgian scientist an ...

* 1979:

Jozef Schell Jozef Stefaan "Jeff", Baron Schell (20 July 1935 – 17 April 2003) was a Belgian molecular biologist. Schell studied zoology and microbiology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. From 1967 to 1995 he worked as a professor at the university. Fro ...

* 1980: Jozef IJsewijn * 1981: André Trouet * 1982:

François Englert François, Baron Englert (; born 6 November 1932) is a Belgian theoretical physicist and 2013 Nobel prize laureate. Englert is professor emeritus at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he is a member of the Service de Physique Thé ...

(

Physics 2013) * 1983: Alexis Jacquemin * 1984: Désiré Collen * 1985:

Amand Lucas Amand Lucas (born 18 December 1936, Liège) is a Belgian scientist and professor at the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, at the Institute for Studies in Interface Sciences.Ritchie R.H., Lambin P., Lambert D., Vigneron J.P. Echeni ...

* 1986: Marc Wilmet * 1987:

Jacques Urbain Jacques Urbain is a Belgian scientist, and professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1987, he was awarded the Francqui Prize on Biological and Medical Sciences for his work on immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmun ...

* 1988: Pierre van Moerbeke * 1989: Pierre Pestieau * 1990:

Thierry Boon Thierry Boon is a Belgian scientist, former Director of the Ludwig Cancer Research branch in (Belgium) and professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He observed that tumour cells that have acquired new mutations as a result of mutagen tre ...

* 1991: Jean-Marie Andre * 1992: Géry van Outryve d'Ydewalle * 1993: Gilbert Vassart * 1994: Eric G. Derouane * 1995: Claude d'Aspremont Lynden * 1996:

Etienne Pays Etienne Pays (born 2 November 1948) is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. His research interest is on trypanosomes. He obtained a PhD in Zoology from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in 197 ...

* 1997:

Jean-Luc Brédas Jean-Luc Brédas is an American chemist, working at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was born in Fraire, Belgium, on 23 May 1954. He received his PhD from the University of Namur, Belgium, in 1979. In 1988, he was appointed Professor at ...

* 1998:

Mathias Dewatripont Mathias François Dewatripont (born 27 December 1959) is a Belgian economist and professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He studied economics at the ULB, ...

* 1999:

Marc Parmentier Marc Parmentier (born 24 March 1956) is a Belgian scientist, and professor at the Institute of Multi-disciplinary Research in Human and Molecular Biology (IRIBHM) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he completed his PhD in 1990. Hi ...

* 2000:

Marc Henneaux Marc, Baron Henneaux is a Belgian theoretical physicist and professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) who was born in Brussels on 5 March 1955. Education and career Henneaux studied physics at ULB and received his doctoral degree i ...

* 2000: Eric Remacle and

Paul Magnette Paul Magnette (born 28 June 1971) is a Belgian politician for the Socialist Party, the current mayor of Charleroi and former political science professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He was the 13th Minister-President of Wallonia ...

(Exceptional Francqui Prize for European Research) * 2001:

Philippe Van Parijs Philippe Van Parijs (; born 1951) is a Belgian political philosopher and political economist, best known as a proponent and main defender of the concept of an unconditional basic income and for the first systematic treatment of linguistic jus ...

* 2002: Peter Carmeliet * 2003:

Michel Van Den Bergh Michel Van den Bergh (born 25 July 1960) is a Belgium, Belgian mathematician and professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and does research at Hasselt University. His research interest is on the fundamental relationship between algebra and geo ...

* 2004: Marie-Claire Foblets * 2005: Dirk Inzé * 2006: Pierre Gaspard * 2007:

François de Callataÿ François de Callataÿ (born 1961) is a Belgian ancient historian, professor at the École pratique des hautes études (Paris/Sorbonne), who has written significant studies of coinage and finance in the ancient Mediterranean world. Life and caree ...

* 2008: Michel A. J. Georges * 2009: Eric Lambin * 2010: François Maniquet * 2011: Pierre Vanderhaegen * 2012:

Conny Aerts Conny Clara Aerts, born 26 January 1966, is a Belgian (Flemish) professor in astrophysics. She specialises in asteroseismology. She is associated with KU Leuven and Radboud University, where she leads the Chair in the Astroseismology group. In ...

* 2013: Olivier De Schutter * 2014: Bart Lambrecht * 2015:

Stefaan Vaes Stefaan Vaes (born February 29, 1976 in Herentals, Belgium) is a Belgian mathematician. Vaes studied mathematics at the KU Leuven with a diploma in 1998 and a PhD in 2001 with thesis advisor Alfons Van Daele and thesis Locally Compact Quantum Gro ...

* 2016:

Barbara Baert Barbara Baert (born 1967,Turnhout) is a Belgian art historian, and professor of art history at KU Leuven. Career Barbara Baert teaches in the fields of iconology, art theory and analysis, and medieval art. She is the founder of the Iconology Res ...

* 2017:

Steven Laureys Steven Laureys (born 24 December 1968 in Leuven) is a Belgian neurologist. He is principally known as a clinician and researcher in the field of neurology of consciousness. Career Prof. Laureys graduated as a Medical Doctor from the Vrije Uni ...

* 2018:

Frank Verstraete Frank Verstraete (born November 1972) is a Belgian quantum physicist who is working on the interface between quantum information theory and quantum many-body physics. He pioneered the use of tensor networks and entanglement theory in quantum man ...

* 2019: Laurens Cherchye, Bram De Rock and Frederic Vermeulen

External links

Francqui foundationLaureates of the Francqui Prize
{{in lang, fr Science and technology awards Social sciences awards Early career awards Belgian awards Awards established in 1933 1933 establishments in Belgium

Laureates of the Francqui Prize

See also

External links