The Nikkei Inc. held the Award Ceremony of the 20th Nikkei Asia Prizes in Tokyo on May 20. WANG Yifang, Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences won the science, technology and environment category and appeared at the awards ceremony.

WANG lead an experiment aimed at solving one of the last remaining mysteries about neutrinos, a type of subatomic particle. Mr. CHENG Yonghua, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Japan attended the award ceremony.

The two-day conference, themed on "Asia Beyond 2015: the Quest for Lasting Peace and Prosperity", was opened on May 21 and attended by leaders of Asian countries. The Nikkei Asia Prize winners of this year were invited to join the conference banquet and introduced to the participants. Mr. Shinzo ABE, Prime Minister of Japan and Mr. CHENG Yonghua also joined the banquet.

Mr. Fujio MITARAI, Honorary Chairman of the Nikkei Asia Prize selection committee, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) cited the prize winners as prominent figures of Asian power. Mr. Naotoshi Okada, President and CEO of Nikkei Inc. addressed at the ceremony, saying: “This is a great cause for the development and stability of the world.”

WANG proposed the Daya Bay neutrino oscillation experiment in China with a detailed detector design and experimental plan, to precisely measure the neutrino mixing angle theta 13. He assembled a large international collaboration and led the team to achieve significant experimental results in the field of neutrino physics.

“Now we are working on a next generation neutrino, collaborating with up to 60 institutions from 10 countries. Basic science not only brings us technological revolution and a better life, but it can also bring us a better, cooperative world. International collaboration is a must," he said at the award ceremony. WANG was also awarded the ZHOU Guangzhao Foundation Award for Basic Sciences in 2013 and the W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics in 2014.

The Nikkei Asia Prizes were created in 1996 to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Nikkei Inc.'s main Japanese-language newspaper, The Nikkei. The Nikkei Asia Prizes are awarded annually in three areas of achievements. To acknowledge the works of winners (recipients) in today's fast-changing Asia, the titles of the three categories have been changed from this year to: "Economic and Business Innovation," "Science, Technology and Environment" and "Culture and Community."

Past winners of science, technology and environment category include Prof. YUAN Longping, the father of hybrid rice; Prof. ZHAO Qiguo, former director of the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Dr. YANG Huanming, Professor and Director of the Beijing Genomics Institute; Dr. WU Maw-Kuen, Director of Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Dr. Chi-Huey WONG, President of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan; and Dr. George Fu GAO, Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

WANG Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, appears at the awards ceremony for the 20th Nikkei Asia Prizes on May 20 in Tokyo. (image by Nikkei.Inc)