COMUNICACIÓN

Yuste Foundation Opens the Call for the 14th Carlos V European Award on its 25th Anniversary

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation has opened the period to submit nominations for the 14th Carlos V European Award, where people, organisations, projects or initiatives that have contributed to the knowledge of Europe’s values as well as to the process of European construction and integration are eligible.

The new edition of the Award was presented in Mérida (Badajoz) today by the General Director of External Action and Executive Director of Yuste Foundation’s Executive Committee, Rosa Balas, and the Director of the Foundation, Juan Carlos Moreno, and they announced that the deadline for the submission of nominations is open until 15 February.

In accordance with the bases of the call, published today in the Official Journal of Extremadura (DOE), the Award is endowed with 30.000€ and it will be delivered, as customary, in a ceremony presided over by King Felipe VI around the 9th of May, Europe Day, at the Royal Monastery of Yuste (Cáceres).

During the presentation of this new edition, the Director General of External Action recalled that the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation launches this Award since 1995 and this year will thus be 25 years since the first Carlos V European Award was delivered. It was given to Jacques Delors “taking into account his open and tolerant spirit and his support of a European model of society based on the defence of democratic values and human rights”.

In this sense, Rosa Balas added that Yuste Foundation promotes the Carlos V European Award because “we understand that Europe is a vital space that defends values and rights that build a more just, equitable, cohesive and freer society”, which is why it wishes to acknowledge the work done by “personalities, initiatives, institutions and projects that have stood out for their commitment in favour of the European Union or for their contribution to the enhancement of cultural, scientific or historical values of Europe”.

For the Executive Committee’s President, Europe is also a mapping of emotions “because being Europeanist is to feel an activist of the defence of those rights and liberties”. Here she referred specially to the different challenges that Europe faces, such as the withdrawal of United Kingdom from the European project, which implies “setting borders that had already been erased back again”. She, furthermore, referred to the urgent need to reverse climate change and to give migratory flows a common answer.

The Annual Award

Until 2015, the Carlos V European Award was given on a biennial basis and it has become annual from then on. The date of the Award ceremony is set around the 9th of May, coinciding with the celebration of Europe Day, which commemorates Schuman’s Declaration; a statement that set the pillars for a unified Europe.

The solemn ceremony where the Award is delivered becomes a an act of State supported by the Royal House and by His Majesty, King Felipe VI, who holds the Honorary Presidency of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation. This institutional event gathers personalities from other latitudes, European as well as Ibero-American. From Yuste, from Extremadura, we call for a more united and supportive Europe.

The Director of Yuste’s Foundation explained that nominations may be submitted in Spanish or English by those awarded in earlier editions; members of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste; all the Spanish Embassies in the world; diplomatic representations in Spain of the countries specified in the call; institutions, public, cultural, scientific, university or socioeconomic entities from: Member States of the European Union; countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA); members of the European Economic Area (EEA) and countries that are candidates and potential candidates for accession to the European Union. Moreno added that all proposals must include an accrediting report of the proposed person or entity’s merits.

When accepting the Award, winners must commit to personally attend the Award ceremony. The awarded nomination shall, moreover, engage in participating in the European Doctoral Seminar which, named after the winner, takes place at the Royal Monastery of Yuste the following year, after the concession of the Award, as well as in the presentation of the of the publication of the doctoral works and the subsequent delivery of certificates.

Research and Mobility Grants for European Studies

The Award is not merely the “presentation”; the ceremony for the delivery of the Award. It also includes analysis and reflection work, as the Research and Mobility Grants for European Studies are associated to it. These are addressed to European researchers who are working on their doctoral thesis. The subject of these grants is adapted to the proposal made by the winner of the Award in every edition. The chosen researchers in every edition participate in the Carlos V European Award Doctoral Seminar organised by the Foundation during June. Till present, more than 100 researchers from all Europe and from non-European countries, such as Morocco, Brazil or Cuba, have been beneficiaries of these grants.

All these specialist researchers in European subjects make up Yuste’s Alumni Network, established to enable the exchange of projects and information. This Alumni Network, spreads throughout the world’s main universities and research centres, is indissolubly united to Extremadura. In this manner, a set of nodes have been created in order to unite the talent that holds a bond with Extremadura and an umbilical cord with Yuste, which was and remains one of the places where Europe is though about.

More info: https://www.fundacionyuste.org/en/the-european-carlos-v-award/convocatoria-2020/