The brightest stars: These masters have won the country's highest science and technology awards
On June 24, the 2023 National Highest Science and Technology Award was announced, and Academician Li Deren and Academician Xue Qikun received this high honor from China's scientific and technological community.
Li Deren was born in December 1939. He is a famous photogrammetry and remote sensing scientist who has been committed to improving my country's surveying, mapping, remote sensing and earth observation. He has mastered the core technology of global high-precision positioning and mapping of satellite remote sensing, solved a series of difficult problems in high-precision processing of remote sensing satellite images, and led the team to develop a fully automatic high-precision aviation and ground measurement system, making outstanding contributions to the construction of my country's high-precision and high-resolution earth observation system.
The international measurement community once commented: In 1985, Li Deren proposed using an extended reliability theory based on two multidimensional alternative hypotheses, including error discoverability and distinguishability, to deal with measurement errors. This method was called the "Li Deren Method" by the international measurement community and scientifically solved a century-old unsolved problem in measurement.
Xue Qikun, born in December 1963, is a famous scientist in the field of condensed matter physics and has made many important scientific breakthroughs. He led his team to experimentally observe the quantum anomalous Hall effect for the first time, which had a significant academic impact internationally; he discovered interface-enhanced high-temperature superconductivity in heterojunction systems, opening up a new research direction in the field of high-temperature superconductivity internationally.
On August 9, 1999, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced that China began to establish the highest national science and technology award. In the past 20 years, a total of 37 winners have been produced, most of whom are founders of related fields in my country. They have made outstanding scientific and technological achievements and made great contributions to society, such as Yuan Longping, the "Father of Hybrid Rice", Wu Wenjun, a famous mathematician, Wang Zhongcheng, a pioneer of China's neurosurgery, and Huang Xuhua, the chief designer of China's first generation of nuclear submarines.
Academician Yuan Longping is a world-renowned hybrid rice expert, a pioneer and leader in the field of hybrid rice research in my country, and has made outstanding contributions to the development of my country's grain production and agricultural science. He is also the winner of the first National Highest Science and Technology Award. His main achievements are in the research, application and promotion of hybrid rice. In 1997, based on the concept of "super rice" internationally, he proposed the technical route of "hybrid rice super-high yield breeding", which achieved good results in the experimental field, with an output of nearly 800 kilograms per mu, laying the foundation for further solving the problem of large-scale and substantial increase in rice yield.
Wu Wenjun, a famous mathematician who was also the first winner, was born in 1919. His research covers many fields of mathematics. His main achievements are in the two fields of topology and mathematical mechanization. He has done foundational work in topology. His research on characteristic classes and characteristic embedding classes is called "Wu formula", "Wu characteristic class" and "Wu characteristic embedding class" by the international mathematical community. It is still widely cited by international peers and has a far-reaching influence.
It is worth mentioning that Nobel Prize winner Tu Youyou is also the only female winner of the country's highest science and technology award so far. Tu Youyou's scientific contribution is the discovery of artemisinin. Inspired by ancient Chinese medical books, she changed the traditional extraction process of artemisinin and created a method of low-temperature extraction of the effective antimalarial part of artemisinin, which became a key breakthrough in the discovery of artemisinin. She and her team developed artemisinin into the first new drug since my country implemented the new drug approval method in accordance with the new national drug regulations. In October 2015, Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "drawing inspiration from classical Chinese medicine literature, pioneering the discovery of artemisinin, and creating a new method for treating malaria."
As the award with the highest gold content and the greatest rewards in my country's scientific and technological community, the selection requirements for the National Highest Science and Technology Award are also relatively strict, requiring all of the following three points to be met: First, the National Highest Science and Technology Award shall be awarded to no more than two people each year; second, the winners must have made major breakthroughs in the forefront of contemporary science and technology or have made outstanding contributions to the development of science and technology; third, the winning projects must create huge economic or social benefits in scientific and technological innovation, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and high-tech industrialization.
According to CCTV reports, science and technology awards are an important basic system that my country has long adhered to to encourage scientific and technological innovation. They are a concrete manifestation of our party's policy of "respecting labor, respecting knowledge, respecting talents, and respecting creation."
The 2023 National Science and Technology Awards evaluation work embodies three major characteristics. First, highlight the national strategic orientation. Adhere to the "four orientations", take serving the country's major strategic needs and making creative contributions as important principles for nomination and evaluation, optimize the setting of the evaluation group and the composition of the evaluation committee experts around national strategic needs, and strengthen key areas. Secondly, improve the nomination mechanism. Formulate the "National Science and Technology Award Nomination Measures", consolidate the responsibilities of nominees for material review, assist in objection handling and verification, and require nominees and candidates' units to review and check the candidates' politics, conduct, style, integrity, etc. In addition, strengthen the review and control. Strictly select the expert group review committee in accordance with the requirements of high level and hard style, strengthen the review reputation management, strengthen disciplinary constraints, strengthen the integrity review of candidates, and handle objections in accordance with regulations.
