The European Commission has opened up nominations for the 2006 René Descartes Prizes. The nominations go through a Call for Proposal under the Sixth Framework Programme's 'Science and Society' priority.

The areas covered by this call are:

1) Descartes Prize (research)

• prize for teams having achieved outstanding scientific or technological results from European collaborative research in any field of science, including the economic, social and human sciences. Proposals may be submitted by the research teams themselves, or by appropriate public or private organisations.

2) Descartes Prize (communication)

• prize for organisations or individuals having achieved outstanding results in science communication and having been selected as winners by European and/or national organisations which carry out awards in the following fields:

• professional scientists and/or communicators engaged in science communication to the public;

• popularising science through the written word (e.g. newspaper articles, popular science books, editorial policies;

• popularising science through audio-visual and electronic media (e.g. television or radio documentaries, websites);

• innovative action for science communication;

• communicators at the start of their career (e.g. first project, young talents) in all the above categories.
  
  

  The total indicative budget for this call is 1.425 million Euro with the deadline for entries on 4 May 2006.