The Nat Award 2025 honors Phillip Ball, a physicist, chemist, writer, and science communicator. He served as an editor at Nature journal for two decades and is the author of around twenty books exploring science and its interaction with other disciplines such as art, history, sociology, and philosophy.
The eighth edition of the Nat Award opened the events of the City and Science Biennial, which focused on quantum technologies. The award ceremony took place at the Hivernacle in the Ciutadella Park on November 18. During the event, Philip Ball delivered the lecture 100 Years of Quantum Mechanics: What Does It Mean?
Mònica Usart, physicist and meteorologist at RAC1, hosted the presentation.
The ceremony was presided over by Jordi Valls, Deputy Mayor for Economy, Finance, Economic Promotion and Tourism; Joaquim Borràs, Director of Cultural Heritage of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Toni Pou, curator of the City and Science Biennial; and Carles Lalueza, Director of the Museum.
Nat Award
The Nat Prize is an award endowed with 5.000 euros, which recognizes people or institutions that have become benchmarks for their way of looking at and explaining science, because they have promoted vocations in all disciplines of the natural sciences and because they have contributed in a very outstanding way to the conservation of nature. It consists of a piece specially designed by the prestigious sculptor Antoni Llena. Previous winners of the Nat Prize have been: Frans de Waal, Elisabeth Rasekoala, Nalini Nadkarni, Enric Sala, Itsaso Vélez del Burgo and Ann Druyan
The Jury of the Nat Prize is formed by:
- Mònica Artigas, journalist, deputy director of the magazine area of National Geographic.
- Carlota Bruna, influencer, activist for the environment and animal rights.
- David Bueno, director of the Chair of Neuroeducation at the University of Barcelona.
- Carles Lalueza, director of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, and researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology of Barcelona.
- Gemma Marfany, professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona.
- Juli Peretó, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of València.
Philip Ball
1962, Newport, United Kingdom
Philip Ball is a chemist, physicist, writer, and science communicator. He worked for twenty years at Nature magazine, first as Physical Sciences Editor and later as Consulting Editor. Philip Ball is renowned for his exceptional ability to communicate complex ideas in an accessible and creative way and for the wide range of disciplines he addresses: from quantum physics to music, including biology, history, and philosophy.
The British science writer has authored more than twenty books on topics as diverse as the nature of water, pattern formation in the natural world, color in art, musical cognition, molecular biology, quantum mechanics, curiosity, and physics in Nazi Germany.
His book Critical Mass won the Aventis Science Book Prize in 2005, and in 2022 he received the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal from the Royal Society for his contributions to the history, philosophy, and social functions of science.