The Descartes–Huygens Prize is an annual scientific prize created in 1995 by the French and the Dutch governments, and attributed to two scientists of international level, a French one chosen by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen and a Dutch one chosen by the Académie des sciences, to reward their work and their contributions to the French–Dutch cooperation.
The prize is named in memory of French scientist René Descartes (1596–1650) and Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695), who spent several years working in each other's country.
Attribution of the prize The prize consists of an amount of 46000 euros (€23000 for each recipient), contributed by the KNAW, the French Embassy in the Netherlands and the French Minister of Higher Education and Research. It is intended to finance one or more research visits in the Netherlands or in France. It is attributed by juries presided by one of the participating Academies (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Académie des sciences and Académie des sciences morales et politiques), alternating between the following disciplines: natural sciences, life sciences, human and social sciences.
List of the Dutch laureates 1995 - Jook Walraven, physicist 1996 - H. Pannekoek 1997 - Olga Weijers, literary scholar 1998 - Wim van Saarloos, physicist 1999 - Jan Hoeijmakers, geneticist 2000 - Theo Verbeek, philosopher 2001 - Pieter Timotheus (Tim) de Zeeuw, astronomer 2002 - Harry Struijker-Boudier, pharmacologist 2003 - not assigned to Dutch scientist 2004 - , historian 2005 - Anne-Jans Faber, physicist 2006 - Albert Heck, chemist 2007 - Pim den Boer, historian 2008 - Stefan Vandoren, physicist 2009 - Arthur Wilde, cardiovascular researcher 2010 - , historian 2011 - Ieke Moerdijk, mathematician 2012 - Harry Heijnen, cell biologist 2013 - Caroline van Eck, art historian 2014 - Willem Vos, physicist 2015 - Joost Gribnau, epigeneticist 2016 - Louis Sicking, historian 2017 - Daniël Vanmaekelbergh, material scientist 2018 - Katell Lavéant, literary scholar 2019 - , astronomer 2020 - Rampal Etienne, evolutionary ecologist 2021 - Maike Hansen, biophysician
List of the French laureates
1995 - Michel Devoret, physicist 1996 - Denis Escande 1997 - Robert Muchembled, historian 1998 - Philippe Sautet, chemist 1999 - Philippe Devaux 2000 - Virginie Guiraudon, political scientist 2001 - Bernard Meunier, chemist 2002 - Isabelle Olivieri, biologist 2003 - Hamida Demirdache, linguist 2004 - Marie-Paule Pileni, physical chemist 2005 - not assigned to French scientist 2006 - Hubert Vaudry, endocrinologist 2007 - Catherine Secretan, philosopher 2008 - Pierre Braunstein, chemist 2009 - Marc Humbert, pulmonary researcher 2010 - François Héran, social demographer 2011 - François Hammer, astronomer 2012 - , biologist 2013 - Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson, jurist 2014 - Ludwik Leibler, physicist 2015 - Benoit Viollet, molecular physiologist 2016 - Olivier l'Haridon, behavioural economist 2017 - Manuel Bibes, physicist 2018 - Marine Cotte, art conservation researcher 2019 - Julien Barc, cardiovascular researcher 2020 - Halima Mouhib, physicist 2021 - Charles-Édouard Levillain, historian
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