Crown Princess Victoria awarded the Crafoord prizes for 2020, 2021 and 2022 in a ceremony held at Lund University.
After two years of restrictions prevented the event from taking place, Thursday, 28 April, marked the return of the award ceremony for the scientific achievements of individuals.
The Crafoord Prize for 2020 was awarded to Enrico Bombieri “for outstanding and influential contributions in all the major areas of mathematics, particularly number theory, analysis and algebraic geometry” and Eugene Parker “for pioneering and fundamental studies of the solar wind and magnetic fields from stellar to galactic scales.”
The 2021 prize went to Daniel Kastner for the “establishment and concept of inflammatory diseases” like polyarthritis.
And finally, the 2022 prize was awarded to Andrew Knoll “for fundamental contributions to our understanding of the first three billion years of life on Earth and life’s interactions with the physical environment through time.”
Her Royal Highness also awarded the 14 scholarships or research grants provided by the Anna-Greta and Holger Craaford Foundation to recipients engaged in fundamental international research on the four topics that the foundation focuses on.
The award scheme was created in 1980, and the first prizes were awarded in 1982. The prizes can be awarded in four categories: Mathematics and Astronomy, Geosciences, Biosciences (with a specific focus on ecology) and Polyarthritis.
In 2012, the foundation decided to split the mathematics and astronomy prizes into two separate awards that are handed out at the same time, like in 2020 with Mr Bombieri and Mr Parker.
Unlike the first three categories, the polyarthritis prize is only awarded when the foundation and the committee decide that an advance in the field is significant enough to warrant a prize.
Otherwise, the awards are handed out on a rotating basis between mathematics and astronomy, geosciences and biosciences. The prize each year consists of six million Swedish Kroner or roughly 615.000 USD.
The Crafoord Prize operates under the umbrella of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science, like the Nobel Prizes, which is why most of the time, there is a member of the Royal Family present at the ceremony.
