Copernicus Award Copernicus Award The Nicolaus Copernicus Polish-German Research Award (also known as Copernicus Award) is a biannual science award conferred by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Foundation for Polish Science "to the individuals most active in Polish-German scientific cooperation who have made exceptional research achievements as a result of that cooperation." The award was established in 2006 and is named after Renaissance astronomer and polymath Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). It carries a cash prize of €200,000 shared equally by two winners, one from Germany and one from Poland. In order to be eligible for the award, candidates must have at least a doctoral degree
Nicolaus Copernicus a natural choice for German-speaking students, regardless of their ethnicity or self-identification. The surname "Kopernik", "Copernik", "Koppernigk" is recorded in Kraków from c. 1350, in various spellings, apparently given to people from the village of Koperniki (prior to 1845 rendered Kopernik, "Copernik, Copirnik" and "Koppirnik") in the Duchy of Nysa. Nicolas Copernicus' great-grandfather is recorded as having received citizenship in Kraków in 1386. The toponym "Kopernik" (modern "Koperniki") has been variously tied to the Polish word for "dill" ("koper") and German for copper ("Kupfer"). The suffix -nik (or plural -niki) denotes a Slavic and Polish agent noun, though. As was