2011 EDITION

Gretchen
Kalonji
Assistant Director-General
for Natural Sciences at UNESCO
This year, we are honouring women and science.
2011 has been proclaimed the “International year
of chemistry” by the United Nations. The launch
ceremonies took place at UNESCO on 27 and 28
January, at which scientists and politicians talked
at length about chemistry’s essential contribution
to knowledge, its importance in all aspects of our
everyday lives and the crucial role it will play in
sustainable development.
For the first time in the history of international years,
a plenary session was dedicated specifically to
women’s contribution to science, honouring two-time
Nobel Prize winner Marie Slodowska Curie and with
a presentation by Ada Yonath, winner of the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 2009 and laureate of the
L’Oréal-UNESCO Award For Women in Science in
2008. Promoting the role of women in chemistry is
one of the four main aims of the International year
of chemistry, with a number of events taking place
around the world during the year on this theme.
“Madame Curie” was celebrated again at the
Sorbonne on 29 January on the occasion of the
100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize for chemistry.
The L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award
ceremony, held at UNESCO on 3 March, is a key part
of this series of events, with five exceptional female
scientists from five continents honoured for their
contribution to advances in science. Two of them are
eminent in the field of chemistry. And 15 fellowship
winners, also from different parts of the world, will
participate in the ceremony as well. Once again
this year, but to a greater extent than usual,
L’Oréal and UNESCO combine their efforts to
spread the message summarising their mutual
claim: “The world needs science and science
needs women”.
As the new Assistant Director-General for
Natural Sciences at UNESCO and the first
woman appointed to this important position, this
message is particularly significant for me. With
its prestigious awards and fellowships, the
L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science
programme achieves goals that I would like to
place at the heart of what we do: working to
establish true equality between men and women
in research and education, promoting diversified,
shared and committed science in our time
to young people, and increasing cooperation
with universities and greater international
cooperation, not forgetting one particular
dimension that the L’Oréal-UNESCO partnership
has been so successful in developing: solidarity.
I am thinking in particular of the steps being
taken with research scientists in Africa.
May the 2011 L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards
For Women In Science be a great celebration,
and together we shall make the International
Year of Chemistry a success.