In these days when the need for scientific culture is so evident, the winners of the CAF-Elhuyar prize have been announced. This year's call has also borne fruit.

In an exceptional health emergency, this year's winners have been made known in an extraordinary way, as there has been no event of awards being given and for the time being the organisation has decided not to celebrate it. However, the winners will receive a prize of 2,000 euros and a sculpture by Imanol Andonegi Mendizabal.

This year, 41 papers were received, with a gender balance among the participants. The jury has decided to award in each category the following works:

In the category of general disclosure articles, the jury has chosen the article “Io eta argia” of the wikilari zarauztarra Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga. In his opinion, the author has chosen a historical perspective to explain how science advances and has produced a legible, attractive and curious work that catches the reader's attention.

In the category of dissemination articles based on the author's doctoral thesis, the prize has fallen under the article "Development of advanced recycled polymers: giving a new life to plastic waste". The author is Dr. Leire Sangroniz Agudo. The jury has emphasized that the thesis tries to respond to a problem that is currently on its own. In addition, the scientific work performed is presented in a very informative way and the essence of the thesis is clearly understood.

Finally, in the category of scientific journalism, the jury has unanimously decided to award the prize to Josu López Gazpiori de Tolosa for his work “The science of music”. This is a good example of scientific dissemination. He says he explains very well the relationship between music and science, while explaining that the idiosyncrasy of music goes further. It has also highlighted its entertaining and attractive character.

The non-celebration of the event was not the only extraordinary decision of this edition of the CAF-Elhuyar Awards: The jury has decided to declare unsuccessful the award of the Neiker Special Award, which awards the best work of the primary sector, and the Science Society Creation Scholarship, as the presented works are not of sufficient quality to be awarded.

Scholarship and Merit Award

However, the organisation has decided to reserve the grant for this year's creation grant (EUR 5,000) for next year and has called on the creators to submit their projects. The projects that have been promoted in previous years have come a fruitful path, and a clear example of this is the one that won last year: “Fossil Plastics. Imaginary trunks” of the burmese Martín Etxauri Sainz de Murieta.

The artist sums it up like this. “This project proposes a double question through stem surfaces scanned by photogrammetry printed in three dimensions: Will plastic sediments ever play the role of stones in the formation of fossils, occupying the place of wood and becoming fossils of plastic trunks? Or ourselves, in a dumb contradiction exercise, will we create those plastic trunks to harden the surfaces of trees that no longer exist?” Etxauri was to present in the Kutxa Kultur Plaza (Tabakalera) room the exhibition of the project result along with the award ceremony. The exhibition will preferably open in autumn, but meanwhile, on your website you can find some brushstrokes of the work.

Finally, the professor of genetics, Ana Zubiaga Elordiet,has received the Elhuyar Foundation Merit Award for her work in normalizing the Basque language and socializing science.

Zubiaga provides theoretical and practical classes of Human Genetics in the UPV/EHU. In addition to a professor, he is a researcher and is responsible for the research team Molecular Biology of Cancer. He is also responsible for the Genetic Expression Unit of the General Research Services of the UPV/EHU and member of the Ethics Committee for Animal Welfare, among others.

He is also a member of Jakidunde, to which should be added his outreach work. It should be borne in mind that the topics covered, biomedicine and genomics, have developed very rapidly, raising curiosity and even concern in society. Zubiaga is always willing to collaborate and has expressed his comments and opinions on numerous occasions in the journal Elhuyar, in the sessions of Teknopolis and Norko Ferrokarrilla, being a regular participant in the projects of the Chair of Scientific Culture. It also appears frequently in the general media, clarifying the most complicated concepts, with a simple and close language.

The Prize is awarded by the Elhuyar Foundation, and the prizes in other categories are chosen by the jury of articles of dissemination and journalistic works Arturo Elosegi Irurtia, ecologist and researcher of the UPV-EHU; Marian Iriarte Ormazabal, chemist and director of the UPV; Alberto Barandiaran Amandre, journalist and writer