Brussels, 21/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday in Rome European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin awarded the EU Descartes Prize to two pan-European research teams, who worked respectively on polymeric light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) and nutation. This year's Prizes were presented by Professor Ene Ergma Chairperson of the Descartes Grand Jury, Guido Possa, Italian Deputy Minister of Education during a ceremony at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome.
A first award of €700,000 went to a project led by Prof. Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge (UK) in association with researchers from (Belgium), (Sweden), (the Netherlands) and (Germany). The progress accomplished in the project uses PLEDs for creating light and image display screens. This will replace deposited glass- or silicon-backed displays with flexible plastic substrates and open the way up to many other applications.
An award of €300 000 was presented to a led by Prof. Veronique Dehant of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, in association with researchers from the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in Sevres, Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides in Paris and the Observatory of Paris (France), the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Poland), Complutense University of Madrid, the Universities of Alicante and Valladolid (Spain), Technical Universities of Dresden and Munich and GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (Germany), the Technical University of Vienna (Austria), Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic in Prague (Czech Republic), the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev (Ukraine) and the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University (Russia). This project has produced a highly accurate reference model to predict future variations in the earth's axis 2-3 cm instead of 2 meters) which considerably improves the efficiency of positioning and navigation systems.