The European Science Awards ceremony took place on 12 March 2008, when prizes worth €1.8 million were awarded to a number of leading European scientists and science communicators.
Among this year's winners was a research project examining whether economic growth makes us feel happier and whether increased individual wealth leads to a more satisfying life. The EURECONAW project, led by Italian researcher Luisa Corrado, also studied whether and how policy decisions affect our wellbeing, with the aim of eventually helping policymakers to understand the impact of their decisions on the wellbeing of society.
The European Science Awards are celebrated in three fields. This year, the Descartes prize for transnational collaborative research (€1.48 million) honoured pan-European research teams in the fields of food safety, nanobiotechnology and polar research. The Science Communication prize (€195,000) compensated the best science communicators for their role in engaging citizens with science and research.
The Marie Curie excellence awards (€250,000) rewarded the exceptional achievements of five individual scientists who have benefited from the EU's Marie Curie mobility scheme for the training of researchers. This year, in addition to socio-economic research into happiness, this category honoured research on cancer, dark matter, ICT and the body's immune system.
The European Science Awards "represent the best that Europe has to offer," said Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik, presenting the awards. They honour the key qualities of "excellence, openness and creativity," he added.
The Descartes prize was launched in 2000, the Marie Curie excellence awards in 2003 and the Science Communication prize in 2004. This was the first time that all three prizes were awarded in a special European Science Awards ceremony.
