The XVIII edition of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards took place yesterday in Bilbao, honoring ten individuals and two institutions for their contributions across scientific fields.
More than a thousand people attended the ceremony at the Palacio Euskalduna. BBVA Foundation president Carlos Torres Vila emphasized «curiosity over conformism, rigor over simplification, evidence over prejudice, cooperation over fragmentation, and creativity as a force capable of opening new possibilities for the future». CSIC president Eloísa del Pino called for «the need to protect the freedom to be curious». Among the winners, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Allan MacDonald received the award in Basic Sciences for their work on magic-angle graphene. Carl June and Michel Sadelain were recognized in Biomedicine for CAR-T therapies. Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen won in Information and Communication Technologies for the Rijndael algorithm. Carl Wunsch was honored in Climate Change and Environmental Sciences for his ocean research. Nancy Cartwright received the award in Humanities, while the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and NORC at the University of Chicago were recognized for their social data infrastructures. Charles Manski was awarded in Economics, Finance and Management, and Unsuk Chin in Music and Opera.