An international panel of scientists has decided not to award the 2007 Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence.
The panel included seven highly prominent scientists and assembled at the RDS in Dublin yesterday to meet the three scientists shortlisted for the award, a process that involves a separate interview with each candidate.
After the interviews and some time spent in deliberation, the panel chose not to make the award for 2007. In a short statement issued afterwards the panel said: "It was the decision of the international judging panel that no medal would be awarded this year."
The candidates were selected after an initial judging round, conducted by 13 national judges. This panel in turn put forward three candidates, selected from the nomination forms received from university and institute of technology presidents, registrars or deans of research or science. The Boyle Medal is usually awarded every second year by the RDS and The Irish Times to honour the achievements made by scientists working within Ireland or Irish scientists working abroad.
The seven person international judging panel included:
Prof Enric Banda (chair), Spain; Prof Dervilla Donnelly, Ireland; Prof Sir John Enderby, UK; Prof Garret A FitzGerald (2005 Boyle Medal laureate), US; Prof Dorothy Guy-Ohlson, Sweden; Prof Sir Dai Rees, UK; and Univ-Professor Dr Peter Schuster, Austria.