Prince Willem-Alexander Presents Heineken Prizes

The Prince of Orange presented the prestigious Heineken Prizes yesterday to six winners in a special session of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Beurs van Berlage Building in Amsterdam.

“The Heineken Prizes are international prizes awarded biannually to five internationally renowned scientists and one highly talented Dutch visual artist for their great merits to science, Dutch art and society."

"The scientific Heineken Prizes recognise and reward unique achievement in the fields of biochemistry and biophysics, medicine, environmental sciences, history and cognitive science. The sixth Heineken Prize, the Heineken Prize for Art, is awarded every two years to an artist living and working in the Netherlands.”

Below are some highlights from the speech given by the Prince of Orange at the presentation of the Heineken Prizes in Amsterdam.

"I would like to start by warmly congratulating today’s laureates on the award of the prestigious Heineken Prize. I would also like to express my great respect to Mrs Charlene De Carvalho-Heineken, and thank her for the way in which she has continued the tradition started by her father, which now enjoys great international acclaim."

"The Dr. A.H. Heineken Prizes are awarded to scientists and artists who are – I quote – “outstanding” and “a source of inspiration to others”. The laureates are often creative individuals who are able to offer new perspectives, make unexpected breakthroughs, and develop new approaches that others can follow."

"The world is in dire need of people who excel at science, like today’s laureates, to solve a wide range of political, social, ecological, and human questions. And we are fortunate that the appeal the world makes to science, and those engaged in science, is not being ignored."

"However, I do not intend focusing primarily on the valuable results of all that scientific effort – on the results achieved and the way they are applied. Rather, I would like to consider the scientific process as such."

"To celebrate its two-hundredth anniversary, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences has selected as its theme “The Magic of Science”. This spotlights something that people often feel but that is seldom actually stated.
The magic of science. What is that exactly?"

"First of all, it’s an intriguing paradox. After all, isn’t the whole point of science to strip the magic away from natural phenomena, so as to literally discover what is unknown? Of course it is. And it is precisely that ambition to explain reality – or at least parts of it – that many people feel to be rather magical."

"Scientists are people who know how to stop and consider the simplest of questions. Why is something the way it is? Why does something work the way it does? What will happen if we do this…or this…or this? It’s the ability to feel amazement – the way children sometimes gaze in surprise at a speck of dust blown by the wind. It’s that kind of magic."

"And there are also magical elements in the challenge that scientific research involves – the sense of adventure that characterises every scientific quest, and the hard-to-grasp and sometimes fortuitous way in which new insights are generated."

The entire speech given by the Prince of Orange at the presentation of the Heineken Prizes in Amsterdam can be read here.

For more information on the Heineken Prizes, visit the official website.

Photo: Rick Nederstigt