On Saturday 14th October 2023 in Brussels, the Louis De Pauw and Palaeontologica Belgica awards were handed out for the third consecutive year. These awards were created to honor the voluntary and often unpaid palaeontological research carried out by citizen scientists. These ‘volunteer’ scientists do not have an academic degree in the scientific field to which they are actively contributing, and are therefore often not appreciated for their research. The prizes are unique in that, to date, they are the only ones in Belgium to be awarded to non-professional researchers.
Major recognition
The event is organised by the Palaeontologica Belgica research organisation since 2021 and brings together the entire Belgian palaeontological community in advance to form a scientific jury responsible for selecting the laureates. Delegates from the major Belgian universities, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), industry and Belgium’s many earth science associations are represented within this advisory committee.
In this way, the choice of the laureate is a democratic decision supported by the palaeontological community as a whole and does not emanate from one individual organisation. This is important to justify the legitimacy of the award for the palaeontological field as a whole.
