27/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - The president of the Portuguese Business Men's Foundation Antonio Champalimaud will be in Brussels on 28 March to meet the president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and the European Commissioner for Research Janez Potocnik. Leonor Beleza will officially be presenting them with the prize of € 1 million, which will be awarded for the first time in 2007 in an effort to promote research on blindness. The jury will consist of Nobel Prize winner Susumu Tonegawa, the economist Amartya Sen, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors. It is estimated that there are 45 million blind people in the world. 90% of them live in poor countries. Loss of eye-sight could perhaps be presented in 80% of cases, notably by surgery on cataracts.