Dan David Prize

Dan David Prize
Awarded for	outstanding contribution in the fields of science, technology, culture or social welfare
Country	Israel
Presented by	The Dan David Foundation
First awarded	2002
Official website	http://www.dandavidprize.org

Jimmy Wales Accepting the Dan David Prize at the Tel Aviv University, 2015

The Dan David Prize grants annually three prizes of US$1 million each for outstanding achievement. Fields are chosen for Past, Present and Future.

The Dan David Prize is awarded for innovative and interdisciplinary research. Prize laureates donate 10 percent of their prize money to doctoral scholarships for outstanding Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholarships for outstanding researchers in their own field from around the world.^[1]

History

The Dan David Foundation was founded in 2000 with a $100 million endowment by Romanian-born Israeli businessman and philanthropist Dan David.^[2] The Founding Director was Professor Gad Barzilai. The foundation and Tel Aviv University award the prizes. The first awards ceremony took place at Tel Aviv University on May 2002.

In 2016, Catherine Hall of University College London rejected the Dan David Prize. She said: “This was an independent political choice, undertaken after many discussions with those who are deeply involved with the politics of Israel-Palestine.” The British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) described her move as “a significant endorsement of the campaign to end ties with Israeli institutions.”^[3]

Laureates

Year	Theme	Laureate
2002	Past – History	Warburg Library
	Present – Technology, Information and Society	Daniel Hillis
	Future – Life sciences	Sydney Brenner, John Sulston, Robert Waterston
2003	Past – Paleoanthropology	Michel Brunet
	Present – Print & electronic media	James Nachtwey,[4] Frederick Wiseman[5]
	Future – cosmology & astronomy	John Bahcall
2004	Past – Cities: Historical legacy	Rome, Istanbul, Jerusalem
	Present – Leadership: Changing our World	Klaus Schwab
	Future – Brain sciences	Robert Wurtz, Amiram Grinvald, William Newsome
2005	Past- Archaeology	Graeme Barker, Israel Finkelstein
	Present – The Performing Arts: Film, Theater, Dance, Music	Peter Brook
	Future – Materials science	Robert Langer, George Whitesides, C.N.R. Rao
2006	Past – Music	Yo-Yo Ma
	Present – Journalism	Magdi Allam, Monica Gonzalez, Adam Michnik, Goenawan Mohamad
	Future – Treatment of cancer	John Mendelsohn, Joseph Schlessinger
2007	Past – Historians	Jacques Le Goff
	Present – Contemporary Music	Pascal Dusapin, Zubin Mehta
	Future – Quest for Energy	James E. Hansen, Jerry Olson, Sarah Kurtz
2008	Past – Creative Rendering of the Past	Amos Oz, Tom Stoppard, Atom Egoyan
	Present – Social Responsibility	Al Gore[6]
	Future – Geosciences	Ellen Mosley-Thompson & Lonnie Thompson, Geoffrey Eglinton
2009	Past – Astrophysics – History of the Universe	Paolo de Bernardis, Andrew E. Lange, Paul Richards[7]
	Present – Leadership	Tony Blair[7]
	Future – Global Public Health	Robert Gallo[7]
2010	Past – March Towards Democracy	Giorgio Napolitano
	Present – Literature: Rendition of the 20th Century	Margaret Atwood, Amitav Ghosh
	Future – Computers and Telecommunications	Leonard Kleinrock, Gordon E. Moore, Michael O. Rabin
2011	Past – Evolution	Marcus Feldman
	Present – Cinema and Society	Coen Brothers[8]
	Future – Ageing -Facing the Challenge	Cynthia Kenyon, Gary Ruvkun
2012	Past – History/Biography	Robert Conquest, Sir Martin Gilbert
	Present – Plastic Arts	William Kentridge
	Future – Genome Research	David Botstein, Eric Lander, J. Craig Venter
2013	Past – Classics, the Modern Legacy of the Ancient World	Sir Geoffrey Lloyd
	Present – Ideas, Public Intellectuals and Contemporary Philosophers	Michel Serres, Leon Wieseltier
	Future – Preventive Medicine	Esther Duflo, Alfred Sommer
2014	Past – History and Memory	Krzysztof Czyzewski, Pierre Nora, Saul Friedlander
	Present – Combating Memory Loss	John A. Hardy, Peter St. George-Hyslop, Brenda Milner
	Future – Artificial Intelligence, The Digital Mind	Marvin Minsky
2015	Past – Retrieving the Past: Historians and their Sources	Peter Brown, Alessandro Portelli
	Present – The Information Revolution	Jimmy Wales
	Future – Bioinformatics	Cyrus Chothia, David Haussler, Michael Waterman
2016	Past – Social History - New Directions	Inga Clendinnen, Arlette Farge
	Present – Combatting Poverty	Anthony B. Atkinson, Francois Bourguignon, James J. Heckman
	Future – Nanoscience	Paul Alivisatos, Chad Mirkin, John Pendry

References

1. The Dan David Prize
2. "The true worth of Dan David – Haaretz – Israel News". Haaretz. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
3. Prominent Feminist Historian Rejects Israeli Academic Award, Haaretz, 22 May 2016; UK historian declines Israeli prize, citing conflict with Palestinians, Times of Israel, 22 May 2016; Haggai Matar: Famed feminist British historian refuses prestigious Israeli award, +972 Magazine, 22 May 2016; BDS Victory: Feminist Historian Refuses $300,000 Israeli Prize, TeleSUR, 22 May 2016.
4. "2003 Present – Print & Electronic Media: James Nachtwey". Tel Aviv University. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
5. "Laureates 2003". Tel Aviv University. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
6. Al Gore – Present 2008 Laureate – Dan David Prize, TAU Archived May 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
7. "Laureates 2009". Dan David Prize. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
8. "Coen brothers win $1m Dan David Prize". BBC News. 16 May 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2011. The pair were given the Dan David Prize – awarded to people who have made 'an outstanding contribution to humanity' – at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

External links

• Official website – includes complete list of all laureates by year.