On 7 October, a Ceremony of Awarding the 2020 RAS Prizes for the Best Work on Science Popularization Took Place
On Tuesday, 7 October 2021, a ceremony of awarding the 2020 RAS Prizes for the best work on science popularization was held at the main building of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The RAS President A. M. Sergeev and members of the RAS Committee on science popularization participated in the ceremony. The RAS President Alexander Sergeev emphasised the significance of reliability of information in the present-day world, especially of science information, “Activities of people who earnestly deal with science information are of great value. They “digest” information, communicate with scientists to become entirely convinced of its reliability and share it with the community. It is the way we see activities of true science educators. And all of you present here are of this kind. We are really grateful to you. We believe that the significance of your activities will only increase with time.”
The Prizes were awarded in three categories:
• “The best popular science book for schoolchildren and students”
• “The best series of popular science lectures for schoolchildren and students”
• “The best series of short popular science videos”
The right to nominate a candidate for the Prize was granted to academicians, corresponding members, RAS professors, scientists, mass media specializing in science and education, publishing houses and some other people interested in science communication. In total, 59 books, 38 lecture series and 35 video projects were nominated for the competition.
Educational videos “BAIKAL-GVD. Neutrino Hunters” introduced by Academician of RAS G. V. Trubnikov on behalf of JINR were awarded the Third Prize in the category “The best series of short popular science videos”.
The authors of the series:
D. V. Naumov — Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, leading expert in neutrino physics, Head of the JINR Neutrino Programme, DLNP Deputy Director, member of the 2019 Baikal expedition.
M. V. Zhukov — cameraman and editor of all the footage of this series.
E. N. Dubovik — Candidate of Physics and Mathematics, content manager, coordinator, inspirator of this video series, Head of the DLNP Group of Scientific Communication.
For your reference:
The series of 11 short films tells us about the construction of the Baikal Neutrino Telescope, a unique scientific facility, being a part of the Global Neutrino Network (GNN), along with IceCube, ANTARES and KM3NeT.
The telescope objectives are impressive—using neutrinos, scientists want to dive into the past of our Universe some billions of years ago, into one of the hottest epochs, the epoch of active formation of galaxies. It is amazing that we can witness this history-making evolution.
This video series is about physics tasks, the current status of the project and stunning people—scientists, engineers, workers and specialists in different professions gathered to build the engineering wonder, the largest physical facility in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Baikal Neutrino Telescope is under construction by concerted efforts of the international collaboration with a leading role of the Institute for Nuclear Research of RAS (Moscow), a founder of the experiment and of neutrino astronomy on the whole, and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna). The Baikal Neutrino Telescope is one of the high-priority projects in both institutes. A total of more than 70 scientists and engineers from ten research centres from Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are involved.
Photos by Irina Sidorova