CAF-Elhuyar awards recognize the bridges between the scientific-technological field and society
- This year's winners are Galder González Larrañaga, Leire Sangroniz Agudo and Josu López Gazpio
- and Ana Zubiaga Elordieta, professor of genetics, has received the Merit Award from the Elhuyar Foundation.
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In these days when the need for scientific culture is so evident, the winners of the CAF-Elhuyar prize have been announced. This year's call also paid off.
In an exceptional health emergency the winners of this year have been made known in an extraordinary way, since there has been no awards ceremony and for the moment the organization has decided not to celebrate it. However, the winners will receive a prize of 2,000 euros and a sculpture by Imanol Andonegi Mendizabal.
This year 41 papers have been received, with a gender balance among participants. The jury has decided to award in each category the following works:
In the category of general disclosure articles, the jury has chosen the article “Io eta argia” by the Zarauztarra wikilari Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga. In his opinion, the author has chosen a historical perspective to explain how science advances and has developed a legible, attractive and curious work that catches the reader's attention.
The article begins: "In the science fiction series The Expanse, when the forces of Mars and Earth collide on the Io satellite, they need a few minutes to follow what is happening and give orders. The time of displacement of light makes it difficult to conduct the same war." From there, Gonzalez delves into the history of science guided by the inventions of Galileo.
In the category of outreach articles based on the author’s doctoral thesis, the prize went to the article “Development of advanced recycled polymers: giving new life to plastic waste”. The author is Leire Sangroniz Agudo, doctor elgetarra in chemistry. The jury stressed that the thesis tries to respond to a problem that is currently word-of-mouth. In addition, the scientific work carried out is very informative and the merits of the thesis are clearly understood.
Finally, in the category of scientific journalism works, the jury has unanimously decided to award the prize to Josu López Gazpiori de Tolosa for the batch of articles “Music Science”. This is a good example of scientific disclosure. He comments that he explains very well the relationship between music and science, while explaining that the idiosyncrasy of music goes further. It has also highlighted its entertaining and attractive character.
The non-celebration of the event has not been the only extraordinary decision of this edition of the CAF-Elhuyar awards: The jury has decided to declare deserted the award of the special prize Neiker, which rewards the best work of the primary sector, and the creation scholarship in Science Society, since the submitted works do not have the sufficient quality to be awarded.
Creation Scholarship and Merit Award
The organization, however, has decided to reserve the grant for this year's creation scholarship (5,000 euros) for next year and has called on creators to present their projects. The projects that have been promoted in previous years have come a fruitful path, and a clear example of this is the one that won last year: “Fossil Plastics. Imaginary trunks” by burladés Martín Etxauri Sainz de Murieta.
The artist summarizes it as follows: “This project poses a double question through trunk surfaces scanned by photogrammetry and printed in three dimensions: Will plastic sediments occupy the role of stones in the generation of fossils, occupying the place of wood and becoming fossils of trunks formed by plastics? Or will we ourselves, in an exercise of silly contradiction, create those plastic trunks to harden the surfaces of trees that no longer exist?” Etxauri had to present at the Kutxa Kultur Plaza room (Tabakalera) the exhibition of the project result along with the award ceremony. The exhibition will open preferably in autumn, but meanwhile, on its website you can find some brushstrokes of the work.
Finally, the professor of genetics, Ana Zubiaga Elordieta, has received the Merit Award from the Elhuyar Foundation for her work in the normalization of Basque and in the socialization of science.
Zubiaga teaches theoretical and practical Human Genetics at the UPV/EHU. In addition to professor, he is a researcher and is responsible for the research team Molecular Biology of Cancer. In addition, he is responsible for the Genetic Expression Unit of the General Research Services of the UPV/EHU and member of the Ethics Committee for Animal Welfare, among others.
He is also a member of Jakidunde, to which must be added his outreach work. It must be borne in mind that the issues it addresses, biomedicine and genomics, have developed very rapidly, raising curiosity and even concern in society. Because Zubiaga is always willing to collaborate and has expressed his comments and opinions on numerous occasions in the magazine Elhuyar, in the sessions of Teknopolis and Norteko Ferrokarrilla, being habitual participant in the projects of the Chair of Scientific Culture. It also appears frequently in the general media, clarifying the most complicated concepts, with a simple and close language.
The Prize is awarded by the Elhuyar Foundation, and those awarded in other categories are chosen by the jury of articles of dissemination and journalistic work Arturo Elosegi Irurtia, ecologist and researcher of the UPV-EHU; Marian Iriarte Ormazabal, researcher of chemistry and of the UPV foundation; Alberto Baragirre Amillano, journalist and director.
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