The Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award was jointly founded by Fudan University and Zhongzhi Enterprise Group in 2015, to recognize the global scientists who have made fundamental and distinguished achievements in the fields of Mathematics, Physics and Biomedicine. The purpose of this award is to promote global scientific research, along with advancement in science and technology, and thus providing an internationally-shared platform for communication, research and discussion. The award is sponsored by Zhongzhi Enterprise Group with its specialized donation fund.

The candidates must be living scientists who have made fundamental and original achievements representing the cutting-edge standard of current global science and technology, while also remarkably promoting the progress of human society and improving the quality of human life.

The review process for Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award includes nomination by the nomination committee members, the preliminary review by the selection committee, and the final review by the senior committee.

For nomination, each member of the nomination committee can recommend one group including no more than three nominees. For preliminary reviewing, the selection committee will hold an in-person session of selection based on a careful study of the nominees with full discussion. A list of two or three finalists for the competition will be determined by secret ballot. Each of the finalists must obtain the approval of more than (and including) two thirds of the members present. For final reviewing, the senior committee will hold a session and selection based on a careful study of the applications with full discussion.

The laureate(s) will be eventually determined by secret ballot, and then the result will be submitted to the executive council of the award for examination and approval. The winner(s) must obtain the vote of support from two thirds of the members present. The laureate(s) for the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award, after the examination and approval of the executive council, will be publically notified for 15 days at least on the website of Fudan University, Fudan Institute for Advanced Study, and also by way of other related media. By the end of notification period, the award secretariat will report the result of the public notification to the executive council for examination and approval.

The Award this year will be presented to those who are making continuous and endless efforts in the field of Mathematics. Each laureate receives a certificate of merit, trophy, and shares a monetary award of 3 million RMB which is donated by Zhongzhi Enterprise Group. The ceremony will be part of the Fudan Science and Innovation Forum 2018, scheduled to be launched on December 16 this year. What follows is to be a formal and world-wide publication of the winners’ contributions to their fields.

Laureates of early Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award

2016 Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award:

Professor James P. Allison, a professor of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, for his fundamental discovery that blocking CTLA-4 can unleash T cells of the immune system to attack cancer cells and for the development of an antibody against CTLA-4 as the first immuno-oncology therapy.

Professor Tasuku Honjo, a professor of Kyoto University, for his fundamental discovery of PD-1 as an inducible gene in activated T-lymphocytes and his subsequent research revealing PD-1 as a negative regulator of immune responses.

2017 Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award:

Professor Rainer Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his seminal invention of the laser interferometer gravitational-wave detector that became the foundation for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), for the initial analysis of the detector’s major noise sources, and for his subsequent leadership in LIGO’s instrumentation science research, which made the detectors sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves for the first time in human history.

Professor Kip Stephen Thorne, California Institute of Technology, for having the vision to build the scientific case for LIGO, for creating research programs that modeled gravitational waves emitted by astrophysical processes and developed data analysis methods, and for his contribution to LIGO instrumentation science, in particular the formulation of fundamental concepts in the theory of quantum metrology.

Professor Barry Clark Barish, California Institute of Technology, former director of the LIGO project, for his leadership in the construction and initial operations of LIGO, the creation of the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and for the successful conversion of LIGO from small science executed by a few research groups into big science that involved large collaborations and major infrastructures, which eventually enabled gravitational-wave detection.