Chapter 285: Gao Da Prize

To effectively promote the improvement of the medical environment in Spain, Gao Da decided to increase support for medical development and establish relevant awards as a means of fostering it.

As mentioned before, Gao Da had also established relevant innovation awards in the industrial sector, but they were always just small awards, and their purpose was merely to support small and medium-sized enterprises in innovating.

For this award regarding the promotion of medical development, Gao Da decided to completely emulate the Nobel Prize of later generations, establishing a famous award that would be sensational enough to shock all of Europe and even the entire world when presented.

To make this newly established award capable of shocking Europe, generous rewards are indispensable.

This upcoming award has six categories: the Literature Prize, Physics Prize, Chemistry Prize, Mathematics Prize, Medicine Prize, and Technology Prize.

Anyone who wins any one of these awards can receive as much as 800, 00 pesetas in cash and other rewards, with the total value of all rewards reaching up to one million pesetas.

According to the exchange rate between the peseta and the pound sterling, as long as one can win any one of these awards, they can receive over 50, 00 pounds in funds alone.

This is not a small sum of money; it is enough to move any scientific research organization, enterprise, or individual in the world.

The total prize money for the six awards adds up to 4. million pesetas, which converts to 300, 00 pounds; this sum alone is enough to shock all of Europe.

One must know that the famous Nobel Prize of later generations initially had prize money derived only from the interest generated by the 9. million dollars in Nobel's estate.

The prize money for the first Nobel Prize was about 200, 00 dollars, which converted to only 40, 00 pounds. Compared to the 300, 00 pounds in prize money for the awards Gao Da established, the Nobel Prize also has to take a backseat.

This generous prize money alone is enough to make this award famous throughout Europe in a short period of time.

And the generous prize money is only the first step in Gao Da's establishment of the awards. As for the second step, it is the continuous promotion of this newly established award, making every scientific researcher and relevant industry professional in the world take pride in winning it.

The new award was named the Gao Da Prize by Gao Da; doing so was also to quickly increase the fame of the award.

Of course, Gao Da also has his own selfish motives. Once the Gao Da Prize successfully becomes one of the world's top academic awards, the name Gao Da will also be known to everyone and passed down for hundreds of years.

This is like the Nobel Prize of later generations, for which Nobel is known by people. Naming an award after a person is an honor; famous awards including the Nobel Prize and the Turing Award are all named this way.

When people of later generations talk about the Gao Da Prize, they will also remember that a hundred years ago, there was a Spanish King named Gao Da. It was he who spent a great price to establish the Gao Da Prize, thereby promoting the progress of human science and technology as a whole.

This kind of massive boost in prestige is also beneficial to the royal family. As the first King of the Savoy Dynasty of Spain, Gao Da's prestige concerns the survival of the Spanish Savoy Dynasty.

As long as Gao Da enjoys great prestige among the people, the Savoy family will have an extremely high approval rating in Spain. Even if the throne were to be overthrown due to some accident in the future, they could still return to the Spanish throne by seeking help from the royalist party.

The purpose of Gao Da establishing this award, besides promoting the progress of medical standards, is also to let this award continuously attract more elite talent from all walks of life for Spain over the next few decades or even centuries.

Therefore, the wooing of these winners also needs to be highlighted with a heavy stroke.

If a Spanish national wins the Gao Da Prize, in addition to the 800, 00 pesetas in cash, they can also receive rewards including a personal audience with Gao Da, a property in any city in Spain of their choice, 50 acres of land, and a medal.

Winners of scientific research awards can also use Spain's top laboratories for free and gain the qualification to enter the Royal Academy of Sciences.

If a foreigner wins the Gao Da Prize, they can directly apply for Spanish citizenship. After obtaining Spanish citizenship, they can enjoy the same treatment as Spanish winners.

Of course, even if these foreign winners are unwilling to join Spanish nationality, as long as they are willing to work part-time at various universities in Spain, they can still use Spain's top laboratories and relevant materials.

If these winners are willing to join the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, their research funding will also be raised by several levels.

In general, whether it is material rewards or assistance in scientific research, the Gao Da Prize has already achieved perfection.

Using this award to attract talent for Spain, even if it cannot recruit all the winners, at least more than half of the winners will choose to join the embrace of Spain.

Of course, among scientists, there are also some who put their country above all else; they might remain indifferent to Spain's wooing.

But these people are always in the minority; as long as the majority of Gao Da Prize winners can be brought under his command, it actually satisfies Gao Da's plan for this award.

In order to allow the Gao Da Prize to operate long-term like the Nobel Prize of later generations, rather than relying on his own funding every year, Gao Da decided to establish the Gao Da Prize Jury and an award operating company, specifically responsible for the annual presentation of the Gao Da Prize and the distribution of prize money.

To maintain the popularity of the award, in the short term, Gao Da does not intend to lower the prize money. This also means that just distributing the prize money every year requires at least 4. million pesetas, which is not a small expenditure.

Gao Da intends to invest 25 million pesetas into the operating company at once, with the operating company using these funds for investment, and the income earned used to pay the annual prize money.

After deducting the first year's prize money and some advertising expenses, the funds available for the operating company to use are still nearly 20 million pesetas.

With such huge funds used to invest in industry and finance, under the current environment of rapid development in Spain, earning a few million pesetas a year is still easy.

Especially by investing in some industries with high potential, it is very likely that the invested funds will multiply several times in just a few years.

After operating like this for a few years, the operating company will have enough funds to pay the annual prize money, and the remaining funds can also be used to maintain the operation of the award.

Even if the currency depreciates in the future, the operating company can continue to maintain the attractiveness of the award by increasing the prize money.

In a few years, the Gao Da Prize will be able to easily become a world-famous scientific research award, and every presentation will be able to attract the attention of a large number of countries and scientific workers.

Any scientist who wins the award will instantly become a hot commodity, scrambled for by various countries and large corporations.

To make the Gao Da Prize famous, since the end of the Ashanti War, the media controlled by the Spanish royal family has been heavily promoting this newly established award.

If it hadn't been for some of the attention being drawn away by the Three Emperors' Alliance and the assassination of the American President, perhaps the Gao Da Prize would already be known to many Europeans by now.

Even so, in the countries surrounding Spain, the Gao Da Prize has already become a hot topic of discussion, receiving much attention from those scientific workers.

To make the award famous as soon as possible, the prize money for all six categories is publicly disclosed. The public might just be amazed at how generous the prize money provided by the Spanish royal family is, but in the scientific field, many scientists are already restless.

As long as one wins the final award, they can get this prize money, which is a very important income for those scientists who are in urgent need of research funding and those from poor families.

Since Spain started the public opinion campaign, in less than a month, more than 1, 00 scientists have signed up to participate in the selection for the Gao Da Prize.

It is worth mentioning that the category with the most applicants is actually the Literature Prize, which is also related to the large number of cultural universities in Spain.

Before Gao Da became the King of Spain, most of Spain's universities were cultural disciplines, and there were very few science universities related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry; one could count them on one hand.

Although there has been a great change now, that group of writers cultivated by cultural universities will not disappear into thin air.

Upon learning that the Gao Da Prize money was so generous, these people couldn't wait to sign up for the Gao Da Prize with their works, and their goal was precisely the Literature Prize.

Relatively speaking, winning the Literature Prize would be easier. But considering that the number of people signing up for the Literature Prize is too large, the difficulty of winning the Literature Prize has actually increased through the process of elimination.

Considering that there are many literary giants among those who signed up for the Literature Prize, the difficulty of wanting to win the first Gao Da Prize for Literature is no less than other awards, and perhaps even much higher.

After all, the selection of cultural categories is inherently uncertain, and with such great competition, anyone could win the final award.

Instead, the Physics Prize and Chemistry Prize, which have fewer applicants, might not be as difficult to win in the end.

Currently, the main applicants are still scholars and scientists from Spain and surrounding countries; only these nearby countries can transmit letters within less than a month.

At this point in time, there is no internet; the only way to sign up is by mailing letters, introducing one's works and research achievements, and then waiting for further review by the jury.

It is precisely because the registration and review process takes a long time that even though the award was established at the end of the year, the final presentation time was set by Gao Da to the end of the year.

The annual presentation time of the Gao Da Prize will be held on the last day of December, and the registration time for the next year's award will also start from the day after the presentation, which is the first day of every year.

Using a whole year for registration and review is the only way to ensure that the winning works are genuine.

The Gao Da Prize is an award used by Spain to attract a large amount of talent; Gao Da will not allow any cheating in the selection of the award.

At least on the surface, the selection of the award must be fair and just, and no one should be treated unfairly.

Of course, due to distance, currently only people within Europe can sign up to participate.

Although there are also many writers and scientific workers in the United States, their registration requires more time, which obviously cannot catch up with the first Gao Da Prize presentation.

However, fortunately, the second Gao Da Prize can be registered for on the first day of the new year, so Americans can still catch up with the registration for the second Gao Da Prize.

Since the establishment of the Gao Da Prize, a large number of letters have been mailed to the address where the jury is located every day.

For the jury, they have almost no leisure time. Their work is quite arduous; they not only need to distinguish the authenticity of the works and research achievements in these letters but also need to select from these works and research achievements to filter out the most excellent one to receive the final award.

The process of distinguishing truth from falsehood alone requires a long time; instead, the process of selecting the most excellent work and research achievement does not take too long.

Since the official announcement of this award, Spain has also been warming up for the presentation of the award at the end of the year.

Only by making those winners receive much attention, and even the attention of the entire European public, can they experience a supreme sense of honor and achievement, and feel honored to win the award.

This can also make more scholars and scientists interested in signing up for the award, allowing Spain to continuously select from these scholars and scientists.

Although only six people win the award each year, this does not mean that the Spanish government can only contact these six people who win the award.

For other scientists whose research achievements did not win the award but still have some effect, the Spanish government will also make contact.

Talent is something that no country can have too much of. This not only means that one can have one more talent but also means that one's enemy will have one less talent.

Through continuous talent accumulation, Spain can gain an advantage in scientific research, thereby promoting progress in all walks of life.

Gao Da mainly focuses on the progress of the review in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine. Medicine, naturally, goes without saying; this is the foundation for Gao Da to improve the medical environment he himself can enjoy.

And the industries and projects related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry are countless, including the electric power industry and automobile industry that Spain is focusing on developing.

It is even no exaggeration to say that the number of mathematics, physics, and chemistry talents a country possesses can, to a certain extent, also relate to the strength of the country.

As long as enough mathematics, physics, and chemistry talents are hoarded, progress in industries related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry can be promoted. Military industry, light and heavy industry, and chemical industry are all related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and these talents are also the foundation of industrial progress.

Up to now, Spain's promotion of the Gao Da Prize has been quite successful.

Although most of the applicants are writers, there are also quite a few relevant scientists. Many people have used their life's best scientific research achievements to sign up for the selection related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and these research achievements also include those theories and experiments that lay the foundation for the industry.

For the jury, choosing the most excellent one among these far-reaching research achievements is no less difficult than choosing the best one among literary works.

Gao Da is also quite concerned about the jury's review progress and has issued his own instructions.

Regardless of whether the final winning literary works and scientific research projects are the most excellent, these works and projects must first be recognized by the European public.

If the final selected works and scientific research projects cannot be recognized by the public, it proves that this award has already failed from the beginning.

Only by gaining public recognition and having credibility can the award successfully continue to operate.

Otherwise, even if the prize money of the Gao Da Prize is high, the public will lose interest in such an award that lacks credibility.

How to choose the most recognized one among these registered works and scientific research projects is also a difficult problem for the jury.

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(End of chapter)