Brown fetes Nobel laureates Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Amartya Sen

Two Indian-born Nobel laureates - biologist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and economist Amartya Sen - were among the British Nobel awardees felicitated at a dinner hosted by UK prime minister Gordon Brown.

Ramakrishnan was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for chemistry, while Sen achieved the prize for welfare economics in 1998. They and other Nobel Prize winners from Britain were honoured at a dinner reception hosted by Brown and his wife Sarah at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday.

The UK has the largest number of Nobel winners in Europe, and globally it is second only to the US.

Brown said at the felicitation, "Britain was where the first novel was written, the theory of gravity was first formulated, and penicillin was first created to save millions of lives. All of you, the pride of our country, are heirs of that legacy who have nobly enlarged it. You stand on the mountaintops of our time, of human aspiration and achievement."

Other guests at the event included former Northern Ireland politicians John Hume and Lord Trimble, who shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.

Also present were Sir Tim Hunt, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physiology, Sir Martin Evans, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine 2007, and Sir John E Walker, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997.

The UK produces 9 per cent of the world's scientific papers and has a citation share of 12 per cent, again second only to the US. In recent years, the country has consolidated its position as Europe's top research & development location, a statement from 10 Downing said. It added that the UK has created one in four of the world's 100 most important medicines.

The UK has 170 universities and higher education institutes, producing more than 300,000 graduates, over 100,000 masters degree holders, and 125,000 doctoral postgraduates each year, the statement said.