Pedro Miguel Etxenike Landiribar was born in Isaba (Navarra) in 1950. He holds a degree in physical sciences from the University of Navarra and a doctorate in physics from the University of Cambridge and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He worked as a consultant at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Tennessee, USA) and as a professor of solid state physics at the University of Barcelona. He was the Basque Government’s first Minister of Education between 1980 and 1983, and Minister of Education and Culture, and spokesman for the Basque Government, between 1983 and 1984. He also promoted and was a leading advocate for the law to normalise the use of the Basque language.
He is Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of the Basque Country, President of the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and President of the CIC Nanogune Nanoscience Cooperative Research Center.
Honorary Member of the American Society of Physics and of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, first president and honorary president of Jakiunde, the Basque Country’s Academy of Science, Arts and Letters.
He has received numerous distinctions, including the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research (1998), the Euskadi Prize for Research (1996), the DuPont Prize for Science (1996), the Prince of Viana Prize for Culture (1997), the Max Planck Prize in Physics (1998), the Blas Cabrera National Prize for Research (2005), the Manel Xifra i Boada Award for Scientific and Technical Communication (2010), and the Sabino Arana Award (2011). He has also received the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X (1998), and Gold Medals from the University of the Basque Country (1998), the City of Donostia — San Sebastián (2000), the Spanish Royal Physics Society (2003), and Guipúzcoa (2006). Declared Vasco Universal in 1998, he has also been awarded doctorates honoris causa by the University of Valladolid (2000) and the Public University of Navarra (2008), and was awarded the Doctor in Science degree by the University of Cambridge (1998). In 2009 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, and since 2012 he has been chairing the Prince of Asturias awards for scientific research.
LiberPress Camins Award 2012
Pedro Miguel Etxenike received the 2012 LiberPress Camins Award for his splendid contribution to promoting science internationally and his exemplary, innovative work, which demonstrates his talent and wisdom and has opened paths which are not only scientific but also humanitarian, linguistic and socially supportive. A great person, who has worked on the major issues of physics, at the deepest level, in search of scientific and technological knowledge (so necessary for our human, economic and social development), and has always put the results at the service of society. A cultured man, who knows that there is no division between science and the arts, as he has a single name for both: humanity. A restless, intense, tenacious, dynamic man who never wants to stop. And we are lucky to have him.