«ETTORE MAJORANA» FOUNDATION AND CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC CULTURE
DATA ON ACTIVITIES SINCE 1963
123 Schools, 1.497 Courses,
103.484 Participants (124 of which Nobel winners)
coming from 932 Universities and Laboratories of 140 Nations.
In 2009 we celebrate 47 years since the establishment on May 8th, 1962 in Geneva of the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture (EMFCSC). This Institution is neither an academy nor a university like those familiar to us all. Bell, Blackett, Rabi, Weisskopf and Zichichi, signed the charter constitution that gave new meaning to Science and its culture. Every year since 1963, authors of new discoveries and inventions come to Erice; 73 of them were awarded the Nobel Prize after their participation to the EMFCSC activities and 51 were already Nobel laureates. These scientific world leaders teach to students from all over the world who are eager to receive the latest knowledge directly from the mouths of its authors, just as was done in the University of Bologna more than nine centuries ago.
In order to promote the values of scientific culture worldwide and following a proposal by the WFS, a special law was voted unanimously by the Sicilian Parliament, in 1988, to establish the ‘Ettore Majorana Prize – Erice – Science for Peace’. Every year, the Prize is awarded to distinguished scientists and world leaders who have contributed to the promotion of the values of scientific culture. In the last 20 years (1988-2007), 52 prizes were awarded to: P.A.M. Dirac, P.L. Kapitza, A.D.Sakharov, E. Teller, V.F.Weisskopf, J.B.G. Dausset, S.D. Drell, M. Gell-Mann, H.W.Kendall, L.C. Pauling, A. Salam, C.Villi, R. Doll, J.C. Eccles, T.D. Lee, L. Montagnier, Qian Jiadong, J.S. Schwinger, U. Veronesi, G.M.C. Duby, R.L.Garwin, S.L. Glashow, D.C. Hodgkin, R.Z. Sagdeev, K.M.B. Siegbahn, Y.P. Velikhov, J. Karle, J.-M.P. Lehn, A.Magnéli, N.F. Ramsey, H. Rieben, J.J. van Rood, C.S.Wu, R.L. Mössbauer, A. Müller, H. Kohl, M.S. Gorbachev, H.H.John Paul II, R. Clark, M. Cosandey, A. Peterman, R. Wilson, Lord J. Alderdice, J.I. Friedman, M. Koshiba, S. Coleman. The 2007 prize has been awarded to A.N. Chilingarov, P.C.W. Chu, L. Esaki, W.N. Lipscomb Jr., J. Szyszko and M.-K. Wu.