ESET Science Award 2021

The ESET Science Award pays tribute to the top scientists who personify excellent science in Slovakia and internationally and the ceremony took place on Saturday, 16 October 2021, at the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic, Zuzana Čaputová. The laureate of the main category Outstanding Individual Contributor to Slovak Science Award in 2021 was Ján Dusza. Ladislav Valkovič won the award in Outstanding Young Scientist in Slovakia under the age of 35 category. Jozef Zajac has become the Outstanding Academic. The laureates are selected by an international jury of renowned scientists, chaired for the past two years by the Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics, Professor Kip Thorne. Read more below.

The ESET Science Award pays tribute to the top scientists who personify excellent science in Slovakia and internationally. Their scientific work and results contribute to various spheres of society. The third ESET Science Award ceremony took place on Saturday, 16 October 2021, at the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava. The gala evening combined art and science, intellectual and artistic experience. For the first time, thanks to the broadcast on the public broadcaster RTVS, television viewers had the opportunity to be part of the gala evening. Also in 2021, the ESET Science Award took place under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic, Zuzana Čaputová. The President of the Slovak Republic, together with the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Eduard Heger, ambassadors of several foreign countries, and other important representatives of the state and the scientific and academic community, attended the award ceremony.

The laureate of the main category Outstanding Individual Contributor to Slovak Science Award in 2021 was Ján Dusza, who at the Institute of Materials Research of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice is devoted to research and development of progressive ceramic materials. Ladislav Valkovič won the award in Outstanding Young Scientist in Slovakia under the age of 35 category. In his research at the Institute of Measurement of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and also at the Oxford Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Oxford, he works on the development and application of non-invasive methods for measuring tissue metabolism using magnetic resonance. Jozef Zajac from the Faculty of Production Technologies of the Technical University in Košice, whose main area of scientific interest is progressive production technologies and the possibilities and methods of their application in practice, has become the Outstanding Academic.

The laureates are selected by an international jury of renowned scientists, chaired for the past two years by the Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics, Professor Kip Thorne. “The selection of this year's laureates was extremely challenging. It confirms that science in Slovakia is of international quality,“ said Professor Thorne.

The other members of the international jury were internationally renowned scientists - biologist Fiona Watt, who is Director of the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at King's College London; chemist and philanthropist Hana Dvořáková, who was behind the creation of one of the most effective anti-HIV agents and is currently at the University of Chemical Technology in Prague; Ralf Riedel, professor of inorganic chemistry at the Institute of Materials Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt; and Tibor Krisztin, professor of mathematics at the Bolyai Institute, part of the University of Segedin. The laureate of the Outstanding Academic category was decided by representatives of Slovak scientific universities.

Finalists of the category:
Outstanding
individual contributor
to Slovak science
Finalists of the category:
Outstanding
individual contributor
to Slovak science
Finalists of the category:
Exceptional young scientist
in Slovakia under
the age of 35
Finalists of the category:
Exceptional young scientist
in Slovakia under
the age of 35
Statute
Statute
Download ESET Science Award Statute as a pdf document

Statute PDF