The Syensqo company, comprising the solutions, activities and markets represented in the article below, was spun off from Solvay group in December 2023.
The Ernest Solvay Prize: Keeping Ernest Solvay’s legacy alive
From the prestigious conferences initiated in the early 20th century to today’s Ernest Solvay Prize, Syensqo is committed to encouraging the advancement of scientific research.
At the heart of this commitment is a deep love of science, as well as a belief in collaborative intelligence as a driver of progress. These enduring values build on the legacy established by Syensqo’s founder, Ernest Solvay, more than 160 years ago, and provide the foundation for the Ernest Solvay Prize.
Supporting scientists, then and now
Few industrial companies have maintained such a close and enduring relationship with academic science and curiosity-driven research. This bond can largely be traced back to the mindset of our company’s founder, Ernest Solvay, who was above all a passionate advocate of science.
In 2022, the International Solvay Institute for Chemistry celebrated its 100th anniversary. Together with its counterpart for physics, these institutes have gathered together some of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds at internationally renowned conferences since 1911.
It was during one of these conferences in the 1950s that the scientific community validated the existence of the double helix structure of DNA. A website, the Solvay Science Project, was created to make the archives of these conferences accessible to all, in collaboration with the Université Libre de Bruxelles, which conserves them.
In support of present day scientific research, the Ernest Solvay Prize, previously known as Chemistry for the Future Prize, was created in 2013. Awarded every two years, the 2022 Prize went to Katalin Kariko for her work on the biochemical modification of synthetically produced messenger RNA, who went on to receive the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Two previous laureates, Carolyn Bertozzi in 2020 and Ben Feringa in 2016, have also received Nobel Prizes, both in Chemistry.
A love of science
Syensqo’s story began 160 years ago, in 1863, when Ernest Solvay patented his improved process for producing soda ash using salt, ammonia and carbonic acid.
Over the following decades, soda ash made Ernest Solvay extremely successful. Yet even as the head of a rapidly growing company, he maintained close ties with the scientific world. He often said that his entrepreneurial journey had a single objective: to give him the financial independence to pursue his passion for scientific research.
Famous for the number of foundations he created, Ernest Solvay earned the nickname, the Belgian Carnegie. While his personal relationships with scientists and individual grants reflected his own interests, there was also a clear and lasting connection between his vision and his company’s identity.
The world’s most prestigious scientific conferences
In 1911, Ernest Solvay organized an international scientific conference at the Hotel Métropole in Brussels. This event would become known as the first Solvay Conference,bringing together leading physicists to discuss their research.
Ernest Solvay built on this by founding the International Solvay Institute for Physics in 1912. The Institute for Chemistry followed ten years later, delayed by World War I. In 1970, the two institutes merged to become the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry.
The 1911 conference stands out for several reasons. The list of participants alone makes it one of the most remarkable gatherings in the history of science, with figures such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Henri Poincaré, Martin Knudsen, Paul Langevin, Max Planck, Walther Nernst and Hendrik Lorentz…
Equally remarkable were the scientific advances it enabled. Focused on radiation and the quanta, the conference addressed the tension between classical physics and emerging quantum theory, opening a new way of understanding the physical world. Ernest Solvay’s intuition proved right: bringing together the greatest scientific minds of an era creates the conditions for breakthroughs that shape the future.
The fifth Solvay Conference, held in 1927, also entered the history books due to the famous debate between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, which laid the foundations of quantum physics. This theory has since enabled technologies that are essential to modern life, including energy systems and digital communications.
The early Solvay Conferences were entirely funded by Ernest Solvay himself, not conceived as corporate sponsored events but as the expression of one man’s profound belief in science. The mission of the Solvay Institutes remains unchanged today: to support and develop curiosity driven research in physics, chemistry, and related fields, with the goal of deepening the understanding of natural phenomena.