The 2018 Steven Krauwer Award for CLARIN Achievements was awarded to Pavel Straňák (Charles University).
Motivation of the jury
Mgr. Pavel Straňák, PhD, has been working actively at CLARIN in Czech Republic and CLARIN- . He has been affiliated at the Charles University, Prague since 2003. His current position is senior research IT worker. He got his PhD degree in 2010 from the Charles University. His specialization is in the area mathematical linguistics. He has participated in a number of EU projects such as:
- CLARIN-PLUS: Strengthening the CLARIN Infrastructure, European Comission, Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme, 2015-2017; CLARIN (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2007-1);
- (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-2-283304): (Member of the Scientific Advisory Board);
- EUDAT2020 (654065); CLARIN-PLUS (676529);
- COST Parseme (IC1207): Member of the Steering Committee (representing ESRs);
- Mellon Foundation: Transatlantic Collaboration between LAPPS and
- CLARIN: Semantic, Technical and Infrastructural Interoperability of Services (31600666).
Pavel is considered one of the most active people in the CLARIN community. Below come some of his most prominent specific contributions while working locally and internationally:
- He is a co-author of the idea of LR Switchboard (together with Dieter Van Uytvanck)
- He is the initiator of the CLARIN DSpace, and he is developing the idea of the connection of the repository of DSpace in CLARIN to the B2SAFE service in EUDAT.
- He has active participation at the initiative of defining the requirements for the B-Centres.
- He was and is very active in the promotion of the idea of independent web applications that have and thus can be easily integrated into whatever is useful but are also openly accessible to all.
- He has always been in favour of an open access to the repository, including submissions, and this is the practice applied in the LINDAT-CLARIN repository which the Czech infrastructure offers to the whole CLARIN-ERIC community.
- An activity in progress: a new technical solution for Oxford Text Archive.
Pavel made outstanding contributions toward CLARIN goals. The jury specifically appreciates the fact that Pavel works from his Nation consortium but exported his ideas to other consortia and is very willing to cooperate with other consortia. Therefore he clearly deserves the Steven Krauwer Award 2018 CLARIN Achievement.
The award ceremony
The 5th edition of the award ceremony took place at the annual CLARIN Annual Conference in Pisa, Italy.
The Steven Krauwer Award for CLARIN Achievements was initiated in 2017. As of this year multiple awards can be awarded. This year there were no nominations for the Steven Krauwer Award for Young Scientist Award.
The awards, named in honor of Steven Krauwer (the first executive director of CLARIN ERIC) are given annually to outstanding scientists or engineers in recognition of outstanding contributions toward CLARIN goals in the areas of language resource building, tool or service development, exemplary use cases, user involvement or knowledge sharing. Apart from the honour the winners receive an official certifcate.
Watch the interview with Pavel Straňák on the occasion of his Steven Krauwer Award