Shortlist for the Boyle Medal 2005

Four outstanding Irish scientists working in Britain, the US and Canada have been shortlisted for the 2005 Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence. The finalist for the award will be announced this autumn after a second judging round conducted by a group of international experts.

The Boyle Medal celebrates the best of Irish scientific research. The Royal Dublin Society devised and first presented the Medal in 1899 to recognise "scientific research of exceptional merit carried out in Ireland". During its first century, 32 medals were presented to some of Ireland's leading scientists.

The RDS and The Irish Times joined to relaunch the Boyle Medal in its centenary year, 1999. The medal is now presented every second year, alternating between an Irish-born researcher working abroad and a researcher of any nationality doing long-term, world-class research here in Ireland.

The 2005 award will be presented later this year to an Irish researcher working abroad. A preliminary judging panel made up of experts from Irish third-level institutions last week selected a shortlist of four superb researchers, a list of names that will remain unpublished as the judging procedures continue.

Their scientific disciplines include mathematics, biochemistry, genetics and physics. Any one of this group or indeed the wider group from which these four were selected could have laid claim to a Boyle Medal, such was the quality of the research presented, according to the chair of the preliminary judging panel, Prof Dervilla Donnelly.

This shortlist of individuals will now move forward to the second judging round. The next panel will include a group of international scientific peers who are recognised world leaders in the disciplines represented by the four finalists, and chaired by a discipline-independent chair.

These judges will meet this coming September to select the recipient of the 2005 award. The winning candidate will then be flown into Ireland for an award ceremony at the RDS later in the year.

The medal takes its name from one of Ireland's most famous scientists, Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who aside from providing us with gas pressure laws, also happens to be known as the father of modern chemistry.

Boyle was the first prominent scientist to perform controlled experiments and to publish his work along with minute details of his procedures and findings. He assembled what we would today call a research group, developed a key piece of apparatus, the vacuum pump, and was instrumental in founding Britain's Royal Society.

The initial judging panel met on May 26th at the RDS to consider the applications received for the 2005 award. The panel included: Prof Dervilla Donnelly (chair), UCD chemistry; Prof David McConnell, TCD genetics; Prof Frank Imbusch, NUI Galway physics; Prof Philip Boland, UCD statistics; Prof Luke Drury, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, cosmic physics; Dr Barry McSweeney, chief scientific adviser; Dr Ciaran Byrne, RDS; Dick Ahlstrom, Irish Times.