Beijing hosts basic science gala, honors 9 pioneers with new medal

The 2026 International Congress of Basic Science (ICBS) opened Sunday at Beijing's Huairou Science City, awarding its inaugural Basic Science Medal to nine scientists whose research spans algebraic geometry, particle physics, flexible electronics and gene editing – four of them women researchers, a notable first for a major basic-science prize of this scale.

Roughly 1,000 participants from over 30 countries and regions gathered for the opening ceremony under the congress theme "Advancing science for humanity." The audience included four Fields medalists – Shing-Tung Yau, Maxim Kontsevich, Martin Hairer and Caucher Birkar – and Turing Award laureate Robert Tarjan, along with some 80 winners of other major prizes including the Shaw, Wolf and Dirac awards.

The nine medalists are French algebraic geometer Claire Voisin, probability theorist Horng-Tzer Yau, mathematician Shou-Wu Zhang, particle physicist Yifang Wang, condensed-matter physicist Xiao-Gang Wen, complex systems physicist Andrea J. Liu, flexible-electronics pioneer Zhenan Bao, super-resolution imaging scientist Xiaowei Zhuang, and CRISPR co-discoverer Feng Zhang. The medals are named after nine pioneers – Emmy Noether, S.S. Chern, Andrew Wiles, Marie Curie, Samuel Ting, David Gross, Chien-Shiung Wu, Steven Chu and Charles Kao – and are divided across mathematics, physics and engineering.

In his opening address, congress chair Shing-Tung Yau, who founded ICBS in 2023, said China has become a hub for basic research thanks to unprecedented funding, policy and talent support. He cautioned that artificial intelligence (AI), while reshaping mathematics and theorem-proving, remains a tool and cannot replace the cross-disciplinary thinking behind scientific revolutions.

The congress runs through August 21 and will host more than 500 academic sessions covering topics from generative AI reasoning to quantum information. It also announced its Frontiers of Science Award, recognizing 111 original papers from researchers in more than 20 countries and regions.