INSTITUTIONS ERAKUNDEAK Basque physicist Pedro Etxenike receives the prince of Asturias Science Prize Pedro Miguel Etxenike, the resear- cher born in Navarre and professor of the University of the Basque Country has received with the Catalan Emilio Mendez, professor in New York Univer- sity the Prince of Asturias prize for Scientific and Technical Research. The jury took the decision unanimously after examining 64 candidatures from 19 countries. Both proposals had received about 200 letters of support from multi- national companies such as IBM, Philips or Hewlett-Packard, Spanish and fo- reign universities, and prestigious scien- tists including some Nobel Prizes. The jury underlined Etxenike’s theo- retical contribution to the research of the condensed matter physics, as well as the creation of a scientific group in the Chemicals College of San Sebastián, which is the international leader of the- revelation has been invaluable in order an exceptional quality”. Moreover the oretical research in electronic micros- to understand what goes on in the swe- award is according to Etxenike “ a dis- copy. He also created a research unit eping tunnel effect microscope discove- tinction granted not only to personal associated to the Consejo Superior de red by Binning and Rochrer, who won work but also to that of a whole school Investigaciones Científicas (Higher the Physics Nobel Prize. formed by many people, some of them Council of Scientific Research). But Etxenike is also a man firmly en- young, some more mature, that have an Pedro Miguel Etxenike was born in gaged with the broadcasting of scientific important international prestige. It is al- Isaba in 1950. He has been a teacher and technological culture. In the eighties so the acknowledgement of the institu- all his life, although he abandoned tea- he was at the head of the creation of the tional research of the Physics Depart- ching in 1980 for four years in order to Technological Centers which are nowa- ment of the University of the Basque become Education Consultant and Spo- days such an important part of the Bas- Country, which is doing an excellent kesman of the Basque Government. Af- que technological network. He is a mem- work and is at the head of world phy- ter this stage as a politician he returned ber of honor of the American Physics So- sics. It is a warrant of the quality of uni- to his professorship and his research in ciety and he has received several prizes versity research in the Basque Country, Cambridge University. such as the Euskadi Prize of Research, gi- and particularly in the University of the The research of Etxenike has been ven by the Basque Government, the Prin- Basque Country (UPV). centered mainly in the explanation with ce of Viana Prize of the Government of Pello Salaburu, rector of the Univer- the methods of mathematics and com- Navarre, and the Dupont Prize of Scien- sity of the Basque Country agreed with puting of the behavior of the particles ce. In July he will receive from Cambrid- these statements – he presented Etxeni- that compound the solid bodies and ge University the highest degree awar- ke’s candidature–, and in his opinion their interaction with outer charged par- ded by this university. the prize “gives prestige not only to the ticles beams. He has proved the losses After he was given the news, Etxe- man who gets it, but also to the institu- of energy suffered by electrons accor- nike was pleased and honored for “this tion in which he teaches, that is, the ding to the distance that separates them is a very prestigious prize given by a University of the Basque Country, and to from a solid surface or interface. This very ample jury and with candidates of the country itself”. ■ 18.