The Russian version of this page
Our congratulations to Pierre Deligne, who shared with
Ph.Griffiths and D.Mumford
the
2008 Wolf Foundation Prize!
List of winners of the 2005 competition
List of winners of the 2006 competition
List of winners of the 2007 competition
List of winners of the 2008 competition
List of winners of the 2009 competition
Pierre Deligne Contest is a competition of young mathematicians of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia. The contest winner is awarded a three-year research grant. The aim of the contest is to help young mathematicians to carry out scientific research staying in their home countries.
A few words about the origin of the contest. In 2004 Pierre Deligne (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ) was awarded the Balzan Prize. This prize is awarded by Balzan Foundation for outstanding achievements in various domains of science and public service. Previously the Balzan Prize winners for mathematics were A.N.Kolmogorov, E.Bombieri, J.-P.Serre, A.Borel, M.Gromov and others. The rules of the Balzan Prize require that half of the sum would be spent for some project plausibly addressed to the support of young researchers. Pierre Deligne has chosen to support "struggling Russian mathematics". His proposal was accepted by the Balzan Foundation. See also the text of Pierre Deligne's speech (in French) at the Balzan Prize ceremony held in Rome on November 18, 2004.
The Pierre Deligne Contest was established in 2005 to support the most active young mathematicians working in Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia. Later on, upon the decision of the Jury, the competition may be spread to other countries of the former Soviet Union.
Any person not older than 35 (more precisely, who gets no more than 35 at the year of the application) who has a PhD in mathematics and lives in any of the countries: Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, is eligible for the competition.
The competitors provide a research statement accompanied by other documents listed in the Application section below. The Jury sends the whole package to appropriate reviewers.
The winners of the competition are chosen by the Jury. The choice will be based on a discussion of the proposal by the Jury, based in turn on the peer reviews collected. The deadline to submit the application is the 15th of October of the current year.
The winners are awarded diplomas of the Pierre Deligne contest and three-year scholarship of 15000 Russian roubles per month. The scholarships will be paid quarterly at the second week of the corresponding quarter starting in January (in January 2006 for the grants awarded in 2005, and so on), except for the months when the winner spends most of the time abroad (i.e. outside of the former Soviet Union). If the winner spends more than 8 months during a year outside of the FSU then grants are paid forfeit part of the fellowship amount, prorata temporis (in this case it does not matter which months the winner spends abroad).
At the end of each year each grantee must present an annual report with a summary of achievements for the past year and of plans for the forthcoming year. The normal procedure is that the Jury accepts the report and takes a decision about the continuation of the grant. At the end of the grant period, a final report must be presented.
All the papers submitted by the grantee during the grant period should have a reference that it was partly funded by P.Deligne's 2004 Balzan prize in Mathematics.
It was originally planned that funds of the Balzan Prize awarded to Pierre Deligne in 2004 would be used to finance 16 stipends in 2005 - 2008.
These stipends were awarded and - taking into account future payments - the fund of 2004 expired. Nevertheless, Pierre Deligne has generously decided to prolong the contest for 2009 using his personal resource (the second half of the Balzan Prize).
Two stipends will be awarded in 2009.
The Jury for the Pierre Deligne Contest is chosen specially for this contest and is independent from any university or other institution.
The Jury consists of two Co-Chairmen, two Vice-Chairmen, two scientific secretaries and numerous experts. The Jury can be enlarged via a unanimous decision of its members provided that at least a quarter of the Jury is present. To deal with technical matters a secretary should be hired to do this job for a salary.
| Pierre Deligne (Co-Chairman) | Victor Vassiliev (Co-Chairman) | Mikhail Agranovich |
| Valeriy Beloshapka | Victor Buchstaber | Alexander Bulinskiy |
| Yurii Burman (scientific secretary) | Boris Feigin (Vice-Chairman) | Alexey Gorodentsev |
| Sabir Gussein-Zade | Yuliy Ilyashenko (Vice-Chairman) | Vadim Kaloshin |
| Alexander Khelemskiy | Askold Khovanski | Valeriy Kozlov |
| Sergey Lando | Segrey Matveev | Sergey Natanzon |
| Leonid Pastur | Alexander Razborov | Armen Sergeev |
| Alexander Shen (scientific secretary) | Leonid Shilnikov | Albert Shiryaev |
| Iskander Taimanov | Dmitry Treshchev | Michail Tsfasman |
| Anatoly Vershik | Ernest Vinberg | Mikhail Zelikin |
The e-mail letter with the application must be of the special form indicated at the Russian version of this page.
These comments are not a part of the rules of Pierre Deligne Contest. Their aim is to answer to the most frequent questions of the participants, in order to facilitate the application process.
The Research Statement should consist of three sections:
It should be addressed to a broad range of experts in the field where the applicant works and in adjacent fields. The Previous research section should contain rigorous formulations of the results already obtained; the Research project section should also contain the most precise formulations available of some of the expected results. In the intermediate cases (e.g. the result is obtained, and a seminar talk has been made, but the result is not published, or published without proof, or accepted for publication, etc.) the result can be inculded in any section of the project, provided its status is made clear.
The Summary should contain a survey of the same information but without any formulas. It should be addressed to a broad mathematical audience.
Potential recommenders, as a rule, should be mathematicians acquainted with the applicant personally or knowing his/her work. It is assumed that the potential recommenders agreed to review the project. If necessary, the jury may ask a person not in the list to be a recommender, too.
It is not assumed that the application package includes reprints of all the published works by the participant. Only papers thought to be important for project assessment must be supplied. (The list of publications can include other papers, too.) If a reprint is not available then a photocopy will suffice. By permission of the jury (ask at pdc AT mccme.ru) some papers can be sent in electronic version only.
The jury expects to use Internet actively to communicate with contest participants, recommenders, etc. So we ask to send all the electronic versions of papers in case they exist or can be obtained by the author. If an electronic version is not available please point this out explicitly (in the list of publications or in a separate letter).Electronic addresses of potential recommenders are vital.
Please use TeX, PostScript or PDF formats for all the files in your submission. Every electronic document from the checklist above should be put in a separate file.
The information about Pierre Deligne contest will be distributed via Internet. The contest site will contain the texts of all project summaries and lists of publications by the applicants. If you agree to publish other information about your project (full text of the project, your CV, texts of the papers, etc.) please let us know.
There is no clear boundary between mathematics and its applications. Despite this the jury will primarily assess the mathematical achievements of the project and not its practical applicability.
The Dynasty Foundation contest for young mathematicians takes place in parallel with the Pierre Deligne Contest and pursues the same goals. However, there are some differences in the rules, in particular, citizens of Ukraine and Belarus can participate in the Pierre Deligne contest (but not in the Dynasty contest) and winners of the Dynasty contest who spend more than 4 months abroad during the same year lose their stipend. For that reason, the Jury suggests that Russian participants not planning lengthy trips abroad apply to both contests. To do this, it is not necessary to send two separate applications: it suffices to indicate (in the electronic application) that you wish to participate in both contests.
