The International Kálmán Prize preserves the memory of the late Alajos Kálmán, an eminent scientist in the field of chemical crystallography. The Prize is established by the Hungarian Chemical Society and is endorsed by European Crystallographic Association (ECA). The ECA awards the Alajos Kálmán Prize twice in a three-year cycle (year of the General Assembly of the IUCr excluded) at the European Crystallographic Meetings (ECMs). The Prize will be awarded to an individual researcher in recognition for outstanding scientific contributions in the field of structural sciences within the last 5-10 years. The prize consists of a medal and a financial award and the awardee delivers a Prize Lecture at the ECM.
The chair of the ECA SIG13 is the chairperson of the Alajos Kálmán Prize Committee and sets up the Prize Committee. The Committee consist of five members, of whom one is delegated by the Hungarian Chemical Society (HCS). The Alajos Kálmán Prize Committee is an independently convened group that works in confidence to discuss the candidacies for the Kálmán Prize. The presidents of the ECA and the HCS monitor the process through general reports from the chairperson of the selection committee, but they are in no way involved in the details of the deliberations or conclusions of the selection committee on the individual candidacies.
The chairperson of the Alajos Kálmán Prize Committee issues a call for nominations in March in the year the prize is awarded. Nomination closes usually the1st of June of the same year.
This year the first International Alajos Kálmán Prize will be awarded. Nominators may be ECA Individual Members, or any person from a national member of ECA, or any Corporate Affiliated Member. The nominator must ensure a signed acceptance of the nomination by the nominee. The nominator must indicate briefly why the candidate is nominated and may include matters such as publication record and the impact of his/her research in the scientific community.
The nominee must have a clear affiliation with the ECA, directly associated with crystallography and be a listed member of the World Directory of Crystallography. The nominee shall not hold a current position on the ECA Executive Committee or on ECA SIG13 or be a member of the current Alajos Kálmán Prize Committee.
The selection of the awardee is conducted by ECA SIG13, but this does not mean that the nominee or awardee must have a strong affiliation with SIG13. The research activities of the nominees and awardee can be in all structural sciences related to crystallography. Nominations must be sent this year to the ECA SIG13 Chair Petra Bombicz. The deadline for nomination will be exceptionally the 1st of August.