Nikkei Incorporated announced recently that Academician Maw Kuen Wu, Distinguished Research Fellow and Director of the Institute of Physics, has been awarded the Nikkei Asia Prize for science, technology and innovation for his contributions to the improved well-being of Asian people. Academician Wu will collect the prize at an award ceremony in Tokyo, Japan on May 25.

The Nikkei Asia Prizes, which are awarded by Nikkei Incorporated (Nihon Keizai Shimbun Company), honor people in Asia who have made significant contributions in three areas： regional growth; science, technology and innovation; and culture. They are given to individuals and groups in northeastern, southeastern, southern and central Asia, excluding Japan. The Nikkei company was founded in 1876 and currently owns five newspapers including Japan's leading economic and business newspaper, as well as more than 40 magazines, and publishing, radio, television and digital media concerns.

Academician Wu specializes in superconductivity and magnetism, low-temperature physics and high-pressure physics. He is perhaps most well-known for his discovery of the critical point of yttrium barium copper oxide, work which led to a rapid succession of new high temperature superconducting materials. He was awarded the prize for his contribution to the advancement of science and technology in Taiwan including his many results in the area of superconductivity research, such as the discovery of a substance that has an electrical resistance of zero even at the high temperature of minus 200 degrees Celsius. Along with Academician Wu, Antonio Meloto, Chairman of Gawad Kalinga, the Philippines, received the award for regional growth; and Bao Ninh, Vietnamese novelist, won the prize for culture.

Academician Wu has taught at the University of Houston, Alabama State University, Columbia University and National Tsing Hua University. He was Deputy Minister of the National Science Council (2000-2002) and Minister of the National Science Council (2004-2006). He has received many honors throughout his career including the National Academy of Sciences Comstock Prize (1988), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Special Award (1988), the Ettore Majorana Prize-Erice-Science for Peace (2008), the Taiwanese-American Foundation Prize (2009), and the Humboldt Research Award (2010). He is a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (2004) and a Fellow of TWAS, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (2004).

In the past the Nikkei Asia Prize has been awarded to founder of the Chimei group, Wen-Lung Hsu (regional growth category, 1999); Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Chairman Morris Chang (regional growth category, 2005); National Endowed Chair Professor, Ministry of Education and Academia Sinica Academician Chun-Yen Chang (science, technology and innovation, 2007); and Distinguished Chair Professor, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, and Academia Sinica Academician Ding-Shinn Chen (science, technology and innovation, 2010).

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