“Knowledge begins with education,” in the words of the Tang Prize Founder Samuel Yin. The Tang Prize, just recently awarded in Taipei on Sunday (September 25), awards the people who have had the greatest impact in fields deemed most relevant to humanity in the 21st century. It awards culture and innovation, said Tang Prize Foundation CEO Jenn-Chuan Chern during his ceremony address. Going one step further beyond rewarding the world’s foremost innovators, the prize stresses the importance of popularizing education and making important interdisciplinary connections, with a mind to address today’s most pressing problems. James C. Liao, President of the Academia Sinica, who delivered one of the opening addresses at the event, underlined the international nature of the prize and its emphasis on creating a more sustainable world.
Over 2,200 attendees witnessed the awarding of the newest laureates at the iconic Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, including some past Tang and Nobel recipients. Among the honored guests on stage were 1986 Nobel laureate in Chemistry Yuan-Tseh Lee, 2001 Nobel laureate in Chemistry Ryōji Noyori, and two of the inaugural Tang Prize laureates, Tasuku Honjo and Albie Sachs.
First awarded was the prize in Sustainable Development to Arthur H. Rosenfeld. In this world of over 7 billion people, finding ways to increase energy production to supply an increasing proportion of the population becomes a massive challenge. At an important juncture during the 1970’s oil crisis, Rosenfeld reframed the question: would cutting down on wasted energy be more effective than producing more energy? The answer to that pivotal question has resulted in making California one of the most energy efficient places in the United States, and its example has been applied to places all over the world. Rosenfeld, already in his 90s, thanked the award committee over a pre-taped video; the prize was accepted on his behalf by one of his former students, Ashok Gadgil, himself an expert in energy and water.
In Biopharmaceutical Science, the prize was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, and Feng Zhang, three scientists who developed and applied the gene-editing platform, CRISPR/Cas9.
CRISPR/Cas9 has been described as a “breakthrough,” a “revolution,” and a “game-changer,” and not for nothing: The system allows scientists to edit genes with precision, consistency, and finesse; it can be applied to pharmaceutical research, human disease, agricultural production, and even energy generation. As described by the introducer to the award, Hsing-Jien Kung, the development of this new gene-editing tool has been long awaited by scientists. “Many believe that this is among the greatest discoveries in the history of genome research,” said Kung.
The awardee in Sinology, William Theodore de Bary, has spent his professional career of seventy-plus years in translating, teaching, and practicing the fruits of China and East Asia’s intellectual traditions, especially that of Confucianism and its later incarnations. What is possibly most important is that he has sought to understand Chinese thought through its own history, ideals and traditions, free from Western preconceptions, theories, and values. In this time characterized by what Samuel Huntington called a “Clash of Civilizations,” Professor de Bary has upheld his belief that such learned conversation can contribute to mutual understanding.
Accepting the prize on behalf of William Theodore de Bary was his daughter, Brett de Bary, herself a scholar of Japanese literature and film. During her acceptance speech, she noted the educational aspect of the prize as “presenting the young people who will guide our world into the future with those who can lead them by example.” This aspect made the prize especially relevant to her father, who still continues to teach at Columbia University at age 97.
Last to receive the prize was Louise Arbour in Rule of Law. From the Arbour Report (Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, 1996) to her indefatigable persistence on the international criminal tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Arbour never relented from ensuring that the rule of law protected everyone, even those at the fringes of society. In her career, which ranges boldly across criminal procedure, civil liberties, and gender issues, Arbour has remained an untiring voice for the sufferers of war and conflict, as well as people whose rights have been neglected to the peripherals of public awareness. Presenting the prize to Arbour was the inaugural laureate in the Rule of Law, Albie Sachs, who was awarded the prize in 2014.
Arbour stressed in her acceptance that a society ruled by laws was not enough. For a truly free society, the content and unbiased application of laws was just as important as their existence. Properly formulated, the rule of law is not an oppressive weight, not a burden on individuality, but the prerequisite for freedom.
What was important to absorb from the latest Tang Prize laureates was not only the achievements that won them the prize, but the struggle and determination that produced those achievements. By giving the younger generations worldwide inspiring examples, the prize hopes to instill the same spirit of tenacity and perseverance within uncertainty that allowed these six individuals to not merely settle for what was given, but to go beyond the present and create a better tomorrow.
