The winning team leaders of the Daiwa Adrian Prizes 2016 with The Lady Adrian and Sir Peter Williams, chairman of the Foundation. © Yuta Naoumi
Daiwa Adrian Prizes 2016
The deadline for Daiwa Adrian Prizes 2016 was 10 June 2016. We had an excellent response to our call for applications, with 48 received from teams across the UK and Japan. The 2016 Daiwa Adrian Prizes were awarded at a ceremony at the Royal Society in November 2016.
Four UK-Japan scientific research teams each received £10,000 in prize money. The four Prizes were awarded across a wide range of disciplines reflecting the diverse range of scientific cooperation that exists between the UK and Japan. We hope that the awards will also encourage those embarking upon UK– Japan scientific projects to maintain and extend their cooperation to produce similarly fruitful and prestigious collaborations.
We extend our congratulations to the team leaders: Professor John Kilner (Imperial College London), Professor Tatsumi Ishihara (Kyushu University), Professor J. Paul Attfield (University of Edinburgh), Professor Yuichi Shimakawa (Kyoto University), Professor Louise Harra (University College London), Dr Hirohisa Hara (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Professor William C. Earnshaw(University of Edinburgh) and Dr Hiroshi Masumoto (Kazusa DNA Research Institute).
The ceremony was attended by Trustees of the Foundation including Sir Peter Williams (our current Chairman), who is also former Vice President of the Royal Society. Guests included members of the winning teams and other distinguished scientists. The Prizes were presented by Lady Adrian, whose husband, the late Lord Adrian, a former Trustee of the Foundation, initiated the Prizes in 1992.
Winners of the 2016 £10,000 Daiwa Adrian Prizes
Ceramic Oxide Surfaces: Gas-Solid Interactions for High Temperature Electrochemical Devices
Institutions: Imperial College London and Kyushu University
UK Team Leader: Professor John A. Kilner
Japan Team Leader: Professor Tatsumi Ishihara
“The Daiwa Adrian award has meant a great deal to both myself and Professor Ishihara (Kyushu University) as it is a recognition of our very fruitful and longstanding collaboration and the strong, historic ties between the UK and Kyushu Island.” – Professor John Kilner, Imperial College London
Materials Discovery using Extreme Conditions
Institutions: University of Edinburgh and Kyoto University
UK Team Leader: Professor J. Paul Attfield
Japan Team Leader: Professor Yuichi Shimakawa
Understanding magnetic energy release at all scales in the solar atmosphere: from small-scale jets and flares that are seen anywhere on the sun, to large scale explosions that are hard to predict and can have a significant impact on the Earth
Institutions: University College London, University of Cambridge, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Nagoya University, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
UK Team Leader: Professor Louise Harra
Japan Team Leader: Dr Hirohisa Hara
“We were delighted to receive the Daiwa Adrian Prize – this has followed on from the beginnings of a collaboration in solar physics in the 1980s and had led to the development of two instruments for space missions. The collaboration is rewarding, exciting and at the forefront of solar physics research. We hope that this successful collaboration encourages others in the future to build on the links, and look to a future with new space instrumentation and leading research.” – Professor Louise Harra, University College London and Dr Hirohisa Hara, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Using Synthetic Human Chromosomes to understand Epigenetic Regulation of Chromosome Segregation
Institutions: University of Edinburgh and Kazusa DNA Research Institute
UK Team Leader: Professor William C. Earnshaw
Japan Team Leader: Dr Hiroshi Masumoto
Over the years of our collaboration, I have been impressed again and again how combining the two – slightly different – scientific cultures of Japan and the UK has enabled our team to come up with creative solutions to difficult problems that either team on its own would have been hard-pressed to solve. Of course, our work is driven by our personal scientific interests and passions. However, recognition of our work as offered by the Daiwa Foundation is a wonderful motivator for continued future cooperation between the UK and Japan. – Professor William C. Earnshaw, University of Edinburgh
We are very much grateful to the Daiwa Foundation for recognizing our long-standing collaboration. We would like to emphasize that receiving the Daiwa Adrian Prize has further encouraged young researchers on both sides strongly. We firmly believe that our UK-Japan collaboration will result in the advancement of life science within a measurable period of time. – Dr Hiroshi Masumoto, Kazusa DNA Research Institute