The 2007 Seki-Takakazu Prize is awarded to Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) . The Prize Presentation Ceremony will be held September 22 at Tohoku University during the Autumn Meeting of the Mathematical Society of Japan (MSJ).
The Seki-Takakazu Prize was named for a famous Japanese mathematician of the 17th century who lived at the same time as Newton and Leibniz and established his own theory of calculus. The prize was founded in 1995 on the occasion of the 50th annual meeting of the MSJ to honor people and organizations who have supported and encouraged the development of Mathematics in Japan over many years.
IHES is in Bures-sur-Yvette, in a beautiful suburb of Paris. It is an institute for advanced research in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. The institute has provided many exceptionally gifted scientists including many Fields Medalists, René Thom, Alexander Grothendieck, Pierre Deligne, Alain Connes, Jean Bourgain, Maxim Kontsevich, and Laurent Lafforgue. IHES was founded in 1958 by the initiative of Léon Motchane who had a strong passion to promote science. The institute is now considered to be the European counterpart of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.
The Seki-Takakazu Prize is awarded to IHES for its outstanding contribution to establishing strong relationships between mathematicians in Japan and France by having offered invaluable research-exchange opportunities for development of mathematics since 1958. The Mathematical Society of Japan organized last year an International Workshop on "Noncommutativity " jointly with IHES , which enjoyed a great success with many important mathematical contributions.
The Seki-Takakazu Prize was first awarded in 1995 to Mr. Toyosaburo Taniguchi in recognition of his financial support for the Taniguchi International Workshop over 40 years. The second winner was Prof. Friedrich Hirzebruch who has invited many Japanese mathematicians to the University of Bonn and the Max-Planck Institut. The third winner was the Japan-U.S. Mathematics Institute (JAMI) based at Johns Hopkins University. JAMI was recognized for its great effort to stimulate cooperation between US and Japan in mathematical research through broadly based programs in Mathematics.