EU-funded scientist receives 2022 Balzan Prize for research excellence

Prof. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, has won one of the four Balzan Prizes awarded in 2022 to scholars and scientists who have distinguished themselves internationally in their particular field of research. Announced in Milan, Italy, on 12 September, the prize she is receiving is for research in ‘Glaciation and Ice-Sheet Dynamics’.

Prof. Dahl-Jensen will share the prize for this category with climatologist Johannes Oerlemans from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The other three prizes have been granted for research excellence in the categories ‘Moral Philosophy’, ‘Ethnomusicology’, and ‘Biomaterials for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering’.

The laureates’ research has been recognised for its ability to help us better understand “our world and our times by promoting the advancement of knowledge without borders, according to the guiding principles of the Balzan Foundation,” reports a press release posted on the Foundation’s website. “The subject areas of the prizes and the Prizewinners respond to the need to grasp the vital essence of today’s scientific and intellectual challenges.”

The winners will personally receive the prize from the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, during the award ceremony that will be held in Rome in November 2022. Each Balzan Prize, awarded in Swiss Francs, amounts to approximately EUR 775 000. The Foundation’s intention is for half of each prize to be invested in novel research carried out by young people under the laureates’ guidance. “In this way, the prizes contribute to scientific progress in different fields of research,” the press release states.The Balzan Prize awarded to Prof. Dahl-Jensen recognises her contribution to our understanding of ice sheet melting, sea level rise, Arctic warming and climate change. The scientist’s research has focused, among other things, on the reconstruction of climate records from ice cores and borehole data and the use of ice flow models to date ice cores. Other research areas include continuum mechanical properties of anisotropic ice, ice in the solar system, and the history and evolution of the Greenland ice sheet. Prof. Dahl-Jensen has previously received EU funding under the WATERUNDERTHEICE (Where is the water under the Greenland ice sheet?) project for her work on mapping the meltwater extent of the Greenland ice sheet and predicting its response to climate change.

The four awards given each year are chosen from two broad categories: two in literature, moral sciences and the arts; and two in the physical, mathematical and natural sciences and medicine. The subject areas change each time, giving preference to new or emerging research fields and supporting often neglected areas of study. According to the press release, this has made it possible “to come full circle through all fields of knowledge” since the Prize’s establishment in 1961. In this way, the Balzan Foundation has been able to achieve its “statutory aim to promote culture, the sciences, and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace, and fraternity among peoples throughout the world, regardless of nationality, race, or religion.”

For more information, please see:

WATERUNDERTHEICE project