Chapter 283: Carlo Prize
To effectively promote the improvement of Spain’s medical environment, Carlo decided to increase support for medical development and establish related awards as a means of support.
As mentioned before, Carlo also established related innovation awards in the industrial aspect, but they were always just small awards, with the purpose merely to support small and medium-sized enterprises in innovation.
This time, for the award to promote medical development, Carlo decided to completely emulate the Nobel Prize in posterity, establishing a famous award that would create a sensation across all of Europe or even the entire world upon promulgation.
To make this newly established award create a sensation in Europe, generous rewards were indispensable.
This upcoming award had six categories: Literature Prize, Physics Prize, Chemistry Prize, Mathematics Prize, Medicine Prize, and Science and Technology Prize.
As long as one obtained any one of these awards, they could receive up to 800,000 pesetas in cash and other rewards, with the total value of all rewards reaching up to one million pesetas.
According to the exchange rate between pesetas and pound sterling, obtaining any one of these awards would yield more than 50,000 pound sterling just in funds.
This was no small sum, enough to impress any scientific research organization, enterprise, or individual in the world.
The total bonus for the six awards amounted to 8 million pesetas, equivalent to 300,000 pound sterling; just this funding alone was enough to create a sensation across all of Europe.
It must be known that the world-renowned Nobel Prize in posterity initially offered only the interest generated from 2 million US dollars of Nobel’s estate.
The bonus for the first Nobel Prize promulgation was approximately 200,000 US dollars, equivalent to only 40,000 pound sterling. Compared to the award established by Carlo with a bonus of up to 300,000 pound sterling, the Nobel Prize had to step aside.
Just this generous bonus alone was enough to make the award famous across all of Europe in a short time.
The generous bonus was only the first step in Carlo establishing the award. As for the second step, it was uninterrupted propaganda for this newly established award, making every scientific researcher and related industry personnel in the world feel honored to win it.
The new award was named the Carlo Prize by Carlo, which was also done to quickly raise the award’s fame.
Of course, Carlo also had his own selfish motives. Once the Carlo Prize smoothly became one of the world’s top academic awards, the name Carlo would also become well-known to the public and be passed down for hundreds of years.
This was just like the Nobel Prize in posterity, through which Nobel became known to people. Naming an award after a person’s name is an honor; famous awards including the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, and others are all named this way.
When people in posterity talked about the Carlo Prize, they would also recall that a hundred years ago there was a King of Spain named Carlo. It was he who paid a great price to establish the Carlo Prize, thereby promoting the progress of all human science and technology.
This massive prestige boost was also beneficial for the royal family. As the first king of the Spanish House of Savoy, Carlo’s prestige was related to the survival of the Spanish House of Savoy.
As long as Carlo enjoyed immense prestige among the public, the House of Savoy would have extremely high support in Spain. Even if the throne were overthrown due to some accident in the future, it could regain the Spanish throne through seeking help from the Royalist Party.
Besides promoting progress in medical standards, the purpose of Carlo establishing this award was also to have it continuously attract more elite talents from various industries to Spain over the next few decades or even centuries.
Therefore, the recruitment of these winners also needed a heavy emphasis.
If Spaniards won the Carlo Prize, besides the 800,000 pesetas in funding rewards, they could also receive a personal audience with Carlo, a property in any chosen city in Spain, 50 acres of land, and medal rewards.
Winners of scientific research awards could also use Spain’s top laboratories for free, as well as gain eligibility to enter the Royal Academy of Sciences.
If foreigners won the Carlo Prize, they could directly apply for Spanish nationality. After obtaining Spanish nationality, they could enjoy the same treatment as Spanish winners.
Of course, even if these foreign winners were unwilling to join Spanish nationality, as long as they were willing to serve as part-time lecturers in various universities in Spain, they could still use Spain’s top laboratories and related information.
If these winners were willing to join the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, their scientific research funding would also be elevated by several levels.
In summary, whether material rewards or assistance in scientific research, the Carlo Prize had already achieved perfection.
Using this award to attract talent for Spain, not to mention recruiting all winners, at least a large half of the winners would choose to join Spain’s embrace.
Of course, there were also some scientists who placed country above all; they might remain unmoved by Spain’s recruitment.
But such people were always a minority; as long as most Carlo Prize winners could be brought under control, it would actually already fulfill Carlo’s planning for this award.
To allow the Carlo Prize to operate long-term like the Nobel Prize in posterity, rather than relying on his own funding every year, Carlo decided to establish the Carlo Prize awarding review panel and award operating company, specifically responsible for the annual promulgation of the Carlo Prize and bonus distribution.
To maintain the award’s fame, in the short term, Carlo did not plan to reduce the award’s bonus. This also meant that just distributing bonuses each year would require at least 8 million pesetas, which was no small expenditure.
Carlo planned to invest 25 million pesetas at once into the award operating company, with the operating company using these funds for investment, and the earned income used to distribute the annual bonuses.
After deducting the first year’s bonus and some advertisement expenses, the operating company could use nearly 20 million pesetas.
Such a massive amount of funds for investment in industry and finance, under Spain’s current rapidly developing environment, earning a few million pesetas annually would be effortless.
Especially investing in industries with greater potential, it was very likely to multiply the invested funds several times over in just a few years.
After operating this way for a few years, the operating company would have sufficient funds to distribute the annual award bonuses, and the remaining funds could also be used to maintain the award’s operation.
Even if currency depreciated in the future, the operating company could continue maintaining the award’s attractiveness by increasing the bonuses.
After a few years, the Carlo Prize could easily become a world-famous scientific research award, with each promulgation attracting attention from numerous countries and scientific workers.
Any scientist who won the award would instantly become highly sought after, eagerly recruited by various countries and large companies and enterprises.
To make the Carlo Prize famous, starting from the end of the Ashanti War, media under the control of the Spanish Royal Family began vigorously propagandizing this newly established Carlo Prize.
If not for part of the attention being drawn away by the Three Emperors Alliance and US President assassination incident, the Carlo Prize would probably already be well-known to many Europeans by now.
Even so, in several countries surrounding Spain, the Carlo Prize had already become a hot topic among people, highly regarded by those scientific workers.
To quickly make the award famous, the bonuses for all six awards were fully disclosed publicly. The public might just marvel at how generous the bonuses from the Spanish Royal Family were, but in the scientific research field, many scientists were already eager to try.
As long as they won the final award, they could obtain this bonus, which was very important income for those scientists urgently needing scientific research funding and those from poor family backgrounds.
Since Spain launched public opinion propaganda, in less than a month, over 1,000 scientists had signed up to participate in the Carlo Prize selection.
Worth mentioning was that the category with the most sign-ups was actually the Literature Prize, which was also related to Spain having numerous culture-related universities.
Before Carlo became King of Spain, most of Spain’s universities were culture-related disciplines, with very few science universities related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry—one could count them on one hand.
Although there had already been great changes by now, the literati cultivated by those culture-related universities would not vanish into thin air.
After learning that the Carlo Prize bonus was so generous, these people eagerly brought their works to sign up for the Carlo Prize selection, targeting the Literature Prize.
Relatively speaking, winning the Literature Prize would be easier. But considering the sheer number of people signing up for the Literature Prize, under the survival of the fittest, it instead increased the difficulty of winning the Literature Prize.
Considering that among those signing up for the Literature Prize there were also many literary giants, obtaining the Literature Prize for the first edition of the Carlo Prize was no less difficult than other awards, even much higher.
After all, culture-related selection was inherently uncertain, and under such intense competition, anyone could potentially win the final award.
On the contrary, the Physics Prize and Chemistry Prize with fewer sign-ups might not have too great a final winning difficulty.
Currently, the main sign-ups were still from scholars and scientists in Spain and surrounding countries; only these closer countries could deliver letters in less than a month.
There was no internet at this point; the only way to sign up was by mailing letters introducing one’s works and research results, then awaiting further review by the review panel.
Also precisely because signing up and reviewing required a long time, even though the award was established as early as year-end, the final promulgation time was still set by Carlo to year-end.
The annual Carlo Prize promulgation time would be held on the last day of December, and the sign-up time for the next year’s award would start from the day after promulgation, that is, the first day of each year.
Using a full year for sign-up and review, this was the only way to ensure the winning works were genuine.
The Carlo Prize was an award Spain used to attract a large amount of talent; Carlo would not allow cheating to occur in the award selection.
At least on the surface, the award selection had to be fair and just, without unfair treatment to anyone.
Of course, due to distance reasons, currently only people within the European scope could sign up.
Although the United States also had many literati and scientific workers, their sign-ups required more time, clearly unable to catch the first Carlo Prize promulgation.
But fortunately, the second Carlo Prize could start sign-ups on the first day of the new year, so Americans could still catch the second Carlo Prize sign-up.
From the establishment of the Carlo Prize, large quantities of letters were mailed daily to the review panel’s address.
For the review panel, they had almost no leisure time. Their work was quite arduous, not only needing to verify the authenticity of the works and research results in these letters, but also to evaluate these works and research results, screening out the most excellent one to win the final award.
Just the verification of authenticity alone required a very long time, whereas evaluating the most excellent works and research results took much less time.
From formally announcing this award, Spain was also preheating for the year-end award promulgation.
Only by making those winners highly regarded, even receiving attention from the entire European public, could they experience supreme honor and sense of achievement, feeling honored by winning the award.
This could also make more scholars and scientists develop interest in signing up for the award, allowing Spain to continuously select among these scholars and scientists.
Although only six people won awards each year, this did not mean the Spanish Government could only contact these six winners.
For research results from other scientists that failed to win but still had some role, the Spanish Government would also make contact.
Talent was something no country could have too much of. This not only meant gaining one more talent oneself, but also meant the enemy would lose one talent.
Through uninterrupted accumulation of talent, Spain could gain advantage in scientific research, thereby promoting progress in various industries.
Carlo mainly focused on the review progress in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the medical field. Medical naturally went without saying; this was the foundation for Carlo to improve the medical environment he could enjoy.
The industries and projects related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry were also countless, including Spain’s key development areas like the electric power industry and automobile industry.
It could even be said without exaggeration that the number of mathematics, physics, and chemistry talents a country possessed could, to a certain extent, relate to the country’s strength or weakness.
As long as sufficient mathematics, physics, and chemistry talents were stockpiled, progress in industries related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry could be promoted. Military industry, light and heavy industry, and chemical industry were all related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry; mathematics, physics, and chemistry talents were also the foundation of industrial progress.
Up to now, Spain’s propaganda for the Carlo Prize had been quite successful.
Although most sign-ups were literati, there were also quite a few related scientists. Many had signed up with their lifetime most excellent research results for mathematics, physics, and chemistry-related selections; these research results also included foundational theories and experiments for those industries.
For the review panel, selecting the most excellent one among these far-reaching research results was no less difficult than selecting the best one among literary works.
Carlo was also quite concerned about the review panel’s review progress and issued his own instructions.
Regardless of whether the final winning literary works and scientific research projects were the most excellent, these works and projects first needed to gain recognition from the European public.
If the finally selected works and scientific research projects could not gain public recognition, it would prove that this award had already failed from the start.
Only after gaining public recognition and credibility could the award successfully operate onward.
Otherwise, no matter how high the Carlo Prize bonus was, the public would lose interest in such an award without credibility.
How to select the most recognized one among these signed-up works and scientific research projects was also a puzzle for the review panel.
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