The Tang Prize would “no doubt” eventually reach the status of the Nobel Prize because of its rigorous selection process and how it complements the Nobel Prize, an academic said recently.
“As long as it continues, I believe the Tang Prize will become the most important award in its respective fields in the future,” Academia Sinica vice president Wang Fan-sen (王汎森) said in an interview with the Central News Agency.
The four Tang Prize categories — sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, Sinology and rule of law — are not covered by the Nobel Prize, and thus the Tang Prize complements the more established awards, Wang said.
He said that the Tang Prize in biopharmaceutical science, for example, was different from the Nobel Prize in Medicine in that the former emphasizes the pharmaceutical application of research and its direct impact on the improvement of human health.
Wang said the Nobel Prize was established during a “Eurocentric” and “science-centric” age, and issues related to Chinese history and civilization, for example, were not among its major concerns.
For Taiwan, Wang believes the Tang Prize “opens a door to the world” and encourages Taiwanese, who he said have long focused too narrowly on domestic issues, to take notice of important global concerns.
“We are rejected by international organizations, but we also reject the world,” he said.
The suggestions given to Taiwan by Tang Prize winners were also worth noting, Wang said, citing Yu Ying-shih (余英時), the winner of the Tang Prize in Sinology, who cautioned Taiwan not to carelessly “throw away” its democracy.
Wang said the first Tang Prize awards had been a great success, but he said that the selection committee should continue to expand and revise its database of individuals and institutions qualified to nominate candidates.
He said he hoped more Taiwanese academics and institutions would nominate candidates for the next Tang Prize, as they were “not enthusiastic enough” this time.
The reason for that, Wang said, is that many academic awards in Taiwan are organized by the government, and local academics are probably not used to nominating people for awards.
The Tang Prize selection committee, chaired by Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), sent out thousands of invitations to individuals and institutions around the world, asking them to nominate candidates in the four categories.
Similar to the Nobel Prize, nominations for the Tang Prize are by invitation only. Winners of the first Tang Prize were selected by panels of judges convened by Academia Sinica that comprised prominent researchers and academics from within the nation and overseas, including Nobel laureates.
The Tang Prize, which is to be awarded every two years and comes with a cash prize of NT$40 million (US$1.32 million) and a research grant of NT$10 million, recognizes academic, scientific and social advances and contributions in the four categories.
It was established by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) in 2012.
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