The 36th edition of the meeting of the juries of the Rei Jaume I Prizes will be held on June 3th and 4th.

The Foundation launches “The other European elections” to raise awareness about the importance of retaining talent

  • A total of 20 Nobel Prize winners, two of whom will be attending for the first time, will be part of the jury that decides the seven winners.
  • A total of 232 candidates are presented for the 2024 Rei Jaume I Prizes, of which 25% are women.
  • The creative campaign has been presented to raise awareness about the importance of retaining and attracting scientific and business talent.

On June 3rd and 4th , the traditional Meeting of Juries will be held in Valencia that will decide the seven winners of the 36th edition of the Rei Jaume I Prizes 2024 in the different categories: Basic Research, Economics, Biomedical Research, Clinical Research and Health Public, Environmental Protection, New Technologies and Entrepreneur.

The executive president, Javier Quesada and the president of the Fundación Valenciana Premios Rei Jaume I, Vicente Boluda, have been in charge of conveying the news of this edition, which took place at the Centro Cultural de la Nau, under the sculpture of the first Erasmus from Europe, Juan Luís Vives.

This year, the jury for the prizes will be made up of nearly a hundred people, of which 20 are Nobel Prize winners in different disciplines, two of whom will attend for the first time as a jury in Valencia. These are Dr. Jack Szostak, 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine (USA) and Dr. David MacMillan, 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (USA).

The Meeting of Juries is the only event in Europe that brings together such a considerable number of Nobel Prize winners. Furthermore, like every year, the jury will have the presence of the country’s main businessmen and women, as is usual every year in the Entrepreneur jury.

A total of 232 applications

Up to a total of 232 people, 54 of them women, 25%, are presented this year to be one of the seven winners of the Rei Jaume I Prizes dedicated to the promotion of Research, Science and Entrepreneurship that the Next June, a jury of more than 90 people will decide, including 20 Nobel Prize winners.

Thus, the prize that has received the most nominations this year is Entrepreneur, with more than 50 people nominated and among whom there are 13 women who aspire to achieve the precious recognition. Next is Biomedical Research, with 40 candidates (9 women), to receive the 100,000 euros prize and, after them, New Technologies with 34 candidates (10 women). Basic Research will have 32 candidates this year (7 women). Clinical Research and Public Health has 32 (8 women). Environmental Protection has 28 (6 women) and ends with the Economics prize with 16 people nominated (5 women).

By communities, it is the Community of Madrid that presents the most candidates, followed by the Comunitat Valenciana and Catalonia. It so happens that this year applications have been obtained from practically all the Spanish communities.

Creative campaign

This event is used to launch the creative campaign that aims to raise awareness of the importance of innovation, science and business for any country. This year, we try to raise awareness about the importance of investment in science and entrepreneurship, not only to enhance our talent but also to retain it.

“The Other European Elections” is a campaign that is framed in the context of the European Parliament Elections in June 2024. A message that, far from focusing on the electoral event, focuses on the European destinations most chosen by the ” Spanish bright minds who decide to leave.

Currently, +700k Spaniards live and work in Europe. Among them, tens of thousands of researchers, doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs who have left Spain in order to prosper. The United Kingdom, France or Germany are some of the ‘European elections’ that they have to face every year in search of a better work future.

Events of June 3 and 4

This year, as a novelty, the 20 Nobel Laureates will come together to celebrate a unique event, in defense of the recognition of the Albufera Natural Park as a “Biosphere Reserve” within the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The aim is to conserve biological diversity and provide sustainable livelihoods for local communities. For this reason, on day 3rd  the event will be at the Science Museum, where several experts will speak on the topic.

The next day, June 4th , the program will not have changes compared to other years, the day will start in Capitania General  with the reading of the “Declaration” of the Nobel Prize winners. Afterwards, the jury meetings will take place in which they will deliberate who are the seven winners of the 36th edition. After it, the winners will be proclaimed at the Palau de la Generalitat.

We celebrate The Earth Day in Castellón

With a series of recreational activities aimed at the youngest and the participation of four King Jaume I Awards for Environmental Protection, the foundation has celebrated Earth Day, this year, from Castellón.

With the participation of the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón and the City Council of the Valencian town, four winners spoke about the sustainable development objectives and the environmental agenda of the Valencian Community.

Thus, José Antonio Sobrino, 2019 Rei Jaume I Prize, has spoken about the contribution of Remote Sensing to sustainable development objectives, “through sensors that allow us to have information on the earth’s surface, with nearly 11,000 satellites in orbit, the ESA (European Space Station) is a world leader in earth observation from space,” acknowledged Sobrino, who stated that, “with the Copernicus program, remote sensing from satellite, helps achieve the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals).” .

From de point of view of José Luis Rubio, PRJI of Environmental Protection of 1996 and president of the Environment Commission of the ACC (Advisory Council), “nowadays there are new approaches with a broader and more ecological vision in the protection , restoration and management of degraded areas. For Rubio, “you have to work with nature, as Epicurus said, without needing to assault it.” And he has mentioned cases such as those in Córdoba, Galicia, with the containment of pollution in the estuaries or the last case of successful intervention, the post-fire emergency interventions in Aragon.

For Xavier Querol, PRJ of 2013, “in Spain air pollution has improved by 70%” as a positive fact, but he has announced that “brakes and wheels are two sources of pollution in cities, such as Florence or Milan, where the burning of residential domestic biomass in homes represents as much pollution as road traffic,” and that is why he has defended the use of eco-certified boilers. And about the city of Valencia, he has reported that “70% of what a person breathes comes from what cars expel.”

The fourth winner, Damiá Barceló, PRJ of 2007, spoke about the global vision and actions in the Mediterranean against water and drought. Barceló has said that “the spring of 2024 is the hottest since 1870” and has denounced that “water is irregularly distributed” as a consequence of a global change but has recognized that “water is a problem if you are poor, if you are not, there is no problem. And so, he has explained the various variations to obtain water such as desalination plants and regenerated water. The winner has proposed “convincing people that solutions like those in California with regenerated, treated and reused water are possible in Spain” and has told how Israel is the country that invented and developed desalination plants for the first time, for which has proposed that Spain should imitate its use.

Finally, on the esplanade in front of the Menador Espai Cultural where the event was held, a series of recreational activities aimed at young people were carried out, as a form of awareness and social sensitization regarding the future of the Earth.

We returned to the Book Fair

One more year we returned to the Valencia Book Fair where we were presented to a very varied…and youthful audience.

With the help of “Viviendo del cuento”, this animation company devised a series of games and challenges that enlivened the afternoon for the large audience that gathered in the space dedicated to presentations in the Jardines del Real de Viveros.

With the presence of up to five winners: Dolors Corella, José Mir, Eugenio Coronado, José Capmany and Jose Antonio Sobrino, the games took place in a great challenge posed as a battle between the public, divided between millennials and those who studied EGB. You can see the result in the summary video that we have prepared: