News Release

Wolf Singer wins the 2003 Communicator Award

Neurophysiologist receives 50,000 euros for the best communication of science to the public

Grant and Award Announcement

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

The award will be jointly presented on 16 September by the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) during the kick-off event for this year's scientific summer programme in Mainz.

The Communicator Award was created in close co-operation between the DFG and the Donors' Association and will be awarded for the fourth time this year. It honours scientists who in a sustained and exceptional manner have made efforts to communicate their work to the general public. A jury of science journalists as well as communication and PR experts evaluates the applications according to the criteria of relevance, target group, originality and sustained effort. This year, 70 applications from various disciplines were received, of which ten were short-listed. From them, the jury selected Wolf Singer as the winner of the 2003 Communicator Award.

Wolf Singer was born in Munich in 1943. In 1962, he began to study medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University of his home town. After receiving his doctoral degree, he first went to the University of Sussex in England and in 1975 was awarded his "Habilitation" in physiology at the Technical University of Munich. In 1981, he was appointed both as a scientific member of the Max Planck Society and as director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. As a neurophysiologist and winner of several awards and prizes, among them the Körber European Science Award, he is studying the fundamentals of brain development, especially the development, structure and functional organisation of the cerebral cortex and the neuronal foundations of perception.

Singer has been committed for many years to communicating not only his research results, but those of brain research in general to the public. He is known from numerous interviews on radio and television as a scientist who is engaged in society's discussion of his field of research and attempts to make basic biomedical research more transparent and comprehensible for laypersons.

He is not only concerned with reducing fears of a scientific grasp for the "seat of the soul", but with making it possible for non-experts to have an informed opinion on the significance and implications of brain research. In public presentations and discussion rounds, contributions to magazines and national newspapers as well as numerous appearances on radio and television, he has attempted to make the results of brain research understandable and to relate them to other social questions.

This includes the debate on educational policy after the PISA study in which the insights of neurobiology play a decisive role. One of the objectives of Singer's public relations work is to improve the educational system by supporting the demand for a fundamental reform of childcare and education using the knowledge of child brain development and of the formative effect of environmental influences.

Apart from relating research results, Wolf Singer is also committed to improving communications between scientists and schools. With the project "Building Bridges – Bringing Science into Schools", Singer has initiated a programme that is designed to get students interested in science at an early age. In the context of this initiative, an intensive dialogue between scientists, students and teachers has developed through school lectures, class visits to institutes as well as joint projects and practical sessions. Originally a joint project of the Department of Schools and Education and the State School Authority in Frankfurt, the response to this initiative was so strong that it has been copied in other regions.

The Communicator Award is not just a monetary award but is also depicted symbolically as a hologram designed by the Cologne artist Michael Bleyenberg. It underlines the significance of transparency in science and gives visual expression to the value of putting things into the right light. Just as a hologram, science will only then truly shine.

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A detailed profile of the award winner and further information can be obtained for reprint (with or without citing the source) in the Press and Public Relations Section of the DFG (phone: 49-228-885-2443) or downloaded from the Internet at www.dfg.de (section: News/Press > Scientific Prizes). The Press and Public Relations Section of the Donors' Association also provides information on the award (phone: 49-201-840-1158).

The prizewinner can be contacted at the following address:

Professor Dr. Wolf Singer
Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung
Deutschordenstraße 46
D-60528 Frankfurt/M.

phone: 49-699-676-9218
fax: 49-699-676-9327
Email: singer@mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de


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