Awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society
Medals
Table:
Medal

Created

Description

Recent recipients

Notes

Buchanan Medal
1897
Originally awarded every five years, this award is now made biennially in recognition of distinguished contribution to the medical sciences generally and the silver gilt medal is accompanied by a gift of £1000.
Gillian Griffiths
2019
[20]

Copley Medal
1731
Awarded annually for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science" the Copley Medal is the oldest and most prestigious award of the Royal Society and is accompanied by a gift of £25000.
John B. Goodenough
2019
[21]

Darwin Medal
1890
Awarded every second year for "work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked" the Darwin Medal is accompanied by a gift of £1000.
Peter Holland
2019
[22]

Davy Medal
1877
Awarded every year "for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry" the Davy Medal is accompanied by a gift of £1000. Unlike many of the medals of the Royal Society that are silver the Davy Medal is bronze.
Varinder Aggarwal
2019
[23]

Gabor Medal
1989
Awarded every second year for "acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines" the Gabor Medal is accompanied by a £1000 gift and is targeted at scientists in the early or middle stages of their careers.
Alison Noble
2019
[24]

Hughes Medal
1902
Awarded annually "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications" the Hughes Medal is accompanied by a £1000 gift. Unlike other medals such as the Copley Medal the Hughes Medal has never been awarded to the same individual more than once.
Andrew Ian Cooper
2019
[25]

Kavli Medal and Lecture
2012
Awarded biennially "for excellence in all fields of science and engineering relevant to the environment or energy" to a scientist in the early stages of his career, the Kavli Medal in bronze is accompanied by a £500 gift.
Ian Chapman
2020
[26]

King Charles II Medal
1998
Awarded to any foreign Head of State, Head of Government, or holder of another position of similar eminence for their contribution to the promotion, advancement, or use of science for the benefit of society, normally at the Society on the occasion of a visit by the recipient. Nominations not invited, awarded at the discretion of Council.
Tony Tan Keng Yam
2014
[27]

Leverhulme Medal
1960
Awarded triennially "for an outstandingly significant contribution in the field of pure or applied chemistry or engineering, including chemical engineering" the Leverhulme Medal is accompanied by a £2000 gift and was created to mark the 300-year anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Society
Frank Caruso
2019
[28]

Royal Medal
1826
Awarded every year in threes the Royal Medal is given for two different reasons; two medals are awarded for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences". The Royal Medal is the only Royal Society medal to be awarded multiple times per year, and is also known as the Queen's Medal.
Carol Robinson,
Michel Goedert,
Ann Dowling
2019
[29]

Rumford Medal
1800
Awarded every second year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe" the Rumford Medal is accompanied by a £1000 gift. The first person awarded the medal was Count Rumford, who created it in the first place.
Miles Padgett
2019
[30]

Sylvester Medal
1901
Awarded every second year for "the encouragement of mathematical research" the Sylvester Medal is accompanied by a £1000 gift and is targeted at scientists in the early or middle stages of their careers.
Peter Sarnak
2019
[31]

From the following table and the context snippets listed below.

Respond to the question below: What is the name of the medal whose recent recipient is a Professor of Synthetic Chemistry at the School of Chemistry of the University of Bristol ? Respond with the correct answer (omit explanations) in JSON format as {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Do not introduce information beyond the provided sources.

The Buchanan Medal is awarded by the Royal Society in recognition of distinguished contribution to the medical sciences generally . The award was created in 1897 from a fund to the memory of London physician Sir George Buchanan ( 1831-1895 ) . It was to be awarded once every five years , but since 1990 the medal has been awarded every two years . Since its creation , it has been awarded 28 times , and unlike other Royal Society medals such as the Royal Medal , it has never been awarded to the same individual multiple times . As a result of the criteria for the medal , most of the winners have been doctors or other medical professionals ; an exception was Frederick Warner , an engineer who won the medal in 1982 for his important role in reducing pollution of the River Thames and of his significant contributions to risk assessment . Two winners have also won a Nobel Prize . The first , Barry Marshall , who was awarded the Buchanan Medal in 1998 in recognition of his work on discovering the role of Helicobacter pylori as a cause of diseases such as duodenal ulcer , gastric ulcer , gastric cancer and gastritis-associated dyspepsia and won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005 . The second , Peter Ratcliffe , won the medal in 2017 for his ground-breaking research on oxygen sensing and signalling pathways mediating cellular responses to hypoxia , and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2019https : //www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2019/ratcliffe/facts/ . The first winner of the Buchanan Medal was John Simon , who won his medal in 1897 for his distinguished services as an organizer of medical sanitary administration in this country , and as a promoter of scientific research relating to public health .
Pound sterling ( symbol : £ ; ISO code : GBP ) , commonly known as the pound and less commonly referred to as sterling , is the official currency of the United Kingdom , Jersey , Guernsey , the Isle of Man , Gibraltar , South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands , the British Antarctic Territory , and Tristan da Cunha . It is subdivided into 100 pence ( singular : penny , abbreviated : p ) . The Pound sterling is the oldest currency in continuous use . A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound . Sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market , after the United States dollar , the euro , and the Japanese yen . Together with those three currencies and the Chinese yuan , it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights . As of 30 September 2019 [ update ] , sterling is also the fifth most-held reserve currency in global reserves . The British Crown dependencies of Guernsey , Jersey and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling ( the Guernsey pound , the Jersey pound and the Manx pound ) which are considered fully equivalent to UK sterling in their respective regions . The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar ( alongside the Gibraltar pound ) , the Falkland Islands ( alongside the Falkland Islands pound ) , Saint Helena and Ascension Island in Saint Helena , Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ( alongside the Saint Helena pound ) . The Bank of England is the central bank for the pound sterling , issuing its own banknotes , and regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland . Sterling banknotes issued by other jurisdictions are not regulated by the Bank of England ; their governments guarantee convertibility at par .
Gillian Griffiths , FMedSci FRS is a British cell biologist and immunologist . Griffiths was one of the first to show that immune cells have specialised mechanisms of secretion , and identified proteins and mechanisms that control cytotoxic T lymphocyte secretion . Griffiths is Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Cambridge and is the Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research .
The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society , for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science . It alternates between the physical and the biological sciences . Given every year , the medal is the oldest Royal Society medal awarded and the oldest surviving scientific award in the world , having first been given in 1731 to Stephen Gray , for his new Electrical Experiments : - as an encouragement to him for the readiness he has always shown in obliging the Society with his discoveries and improvements in this part of Natural Knowledge .
Pound sterling ( symbol : £ ; ISO code : GBP ) , commonly known as the pound and less commonly referred to as sterling , is the official currency of the United Kingdom , Jersey , Guernsey , the Isle of Man , Gibraltar , South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands , the British Antarctic Territory , and Tristan da Cunha . It is subdivided into 100 pence ( singular : penny , abbreviated : p ) . The Pound sterling is the oldest currency in continuous use . A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound . Sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market , after the United States dollar , the euro , and the Japanese yen . Together with those three currencies and the Chinese yuan , it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights . As of 30 September 2019 [ update ] , sterling is also the fifth most-held reserve currency in global reserves . The British Crown dependencies of Guernsey , Jersey and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling ( the Guernsey pound , the Jersey pound and the Manx pound ) which are considered fully equivalent to UK sterling in their respective regions . The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar ( alongside the Gibraltar pound ) , the Falkland Islands ( alongside the Falkland Islands pound ) , Saint Helena and Ascension Island in Saint Helena , Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ( alongside the Saint Helena pound ) . The Bank of England is the central bank for the pound sterling , issuing its own banknotes , and regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland . Sterling banknotes issued by other jurisdictions are not regulated by the Bank of England ; their governments guarantee convertibility at par .
John Bannister Goodenough ( /ˈɡʊdɪnʌf/ GUUD-in-uf ; born July 25 , 1922 ) is an American materials scientist , a solid-state physicist , and a Nobel laureate in chemistry . He is a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Texas at Austin . He is widely credited with the identification and development of the lithium-ion battery , for developing the Goodenough-Kanamori rules in determining the sign of the magnetic superexchange in materials , and for seminal developments in computer random access memory . Goodenough was born in Jena , Germany , to American parents . During and after graduating from Yale University , Goodenough served as a U.S. military meteorologist in World War II . He went on to obtain his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago , became a researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory , and later the head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford . Since 1986 , he has been a professor in the school of engineering at UT Austin . He has been awarded the National Medal of Science , the Copley Medal , the Fermi Award , the Draper Prize , and the Japan Prize . The John B Goodenough Award in materials science is named for him . In 2019 , he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino , and , at 97 years old , became the oldest Nobel laureate in history .
The Darwin Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked , notably in evolution , population biology , organismal biology and biological diversity . First awarded in 1890 , it was created in memory of Charles Darwin and is presented with a £2000 prize ( as of 2016 ) . Since its creation the medal has been awarded over 60 times , the recipients including Francis Darwin , Charles Darwin 's son , and two married couples , Jack and Yolande Heslop-Harrison in 1982 and Peter and Rosemary Grant in 2002 . The medal was first awarded to Alfred Russel Wallace , a noted biologist and naturalist who had independently developed the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection .
Peter William Harold Holland FRS ( born 17 August 1963 ) is a zoologist whose research focuses on how the evolution of animal diversity can be explained through evolution of the genome . He is the current Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford , and a Fellow of Merton College , Oxford .
The Davy Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry . Named after Humphry Davy , the medal is awarded with a monetary gift , initially of £1000 ( currently £2000 ) . The medal was first awarded in 1877 to Robert Wilhelm Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff for their researches & discoveries in spectrum analysis , and has since been awarded 140 times . The medal is awarded annually , and unlike other Royal Society medals , such as the Hughes Medal , it has been awarded annually without ever missing a year . The medal has been awarded to multiple individuals in the same year : in 1882 it was awarded to Dmitri Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer for their discovery of the periodic relations of the atomic weights ; in 1883 to Marcellin Berthelot and Julius Thomsen for their researches in thermo-chemistry ; in 1893 to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Achille Le Bel In recognition of their introduction of the theory of asymmetric carbon , and its use in explaining the constitution of optically active carbon compounds ; in 1903 to Pierre Curie and Marie Curie for their researches on radium and in 1968 to John Cornforth and George Joseph Popják [ Wikidata ] in recognition of their distinguished joint work on the elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway to polyisoprenoids and steroids .
Varinder Kumar Aggarwal FRS ( born 1961 ) is a British organic chemist specialising in asymmetric synthesis . He is a Professor of Synthetic Chemistry at the School of Chemistry of the University of Bristol .
The Gabor Medal is a medal awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines . The medal was created in 1989 to honour the memory of physicist Dennis Gabor , and was originally awarded biennially . Initially awarded for acknowledged distinction of work in the life sciences , particularly in the fields of genetic engineering and molecular biology , the criteria for the awarding of the medal was later changed to its current definition . The medal is targeted at emerging early to mid career stage scientist [ s ] and is accompanied by a £2000 prize ( since 2017 , earlier £1000 ) . It was first awarded in 1989 to Noreen Murray for her pioneering work in genetic engineering . From 2018 it has been awarded annually .
( Julia ) Alison Noble OBE FRS FREng FIET ( born January 1965 in Nottingham ) is Technikos professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford , a Fellow of St Hilda 's College , Oxford and Associate Head of the Mathematical , Physical and Life Sciences Division at the university . As of 2017 [ update ] she is chief technology officer ( CTO ) of Intelligent Ultrasound Limited an Oxford University spin-off in medical imaging which she cofounded . She was director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering ( IBME ) from 2012 to 2016 .
The Hughes Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences , particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications . Named after David E. Hughes , the medal is awarded with a gift of £1000 . The medal was first awarded in 1902 to J. J. Thomson for his numerous contributions to electric science , especially in reference to the phenomena of electric discharge in gases , and has since been awarded over one-hundred times . Unlike other Royal Society medals , the Hughes Medal has never been awarded to the same individual more than once . The medal has on occasion been awarded to multiple people at a time ; in 1938 it was won by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton for their discovery that nuclei could be disintegrated by artificially produced bombarding particles , in 1981 by Peter Higgs and Tom Kibble for their international contributions about the spontaneous breaking of fundamental symmetries in elementary-particle theory , in 1982 by Drummond Matthews and Frederick Vine for their elucidation of the magnetic properties of the ocean floors which subsequently led to the plate tectonic hypothesis and in 1988 by Archibald Howie and M. J. Whelan for their contributions to the theory of electron diffraction and microscopy , and its application to the study of lattice defects in crystals .
Andrew Ian Cooper FRS is Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Liverpool .
The Kavli Medal is the name of two medals awarded biennially by the Royal Society .
Professor Ian Chapman is a British physicist who is the chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority ( UKAEA ) .
Tony Tan Kheng Yam DUT ( First Class ) GCB ( born February 7 , 1940 ) is a Singaporean politician who was the seventh President of Singapore holding office from 2011 to 2017 after winning the 2011 Singaporean presidential election with 35.20% of the votes , winning by a narrow 0.34% margin over Tan Cheng Bock . Tan was sworn in as president on 1 September 2011 and held office until 31 August 2017 . He is the only living former president of Singapore .
The Leverhulme Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every three years for an outstandingly significant contribution in the field of pure or applied chemistry or engineering , including chemical engineering . It was created in 1960 after a donation by the Leverhulme Trust to mark the 300-year anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Society , and is accompanied by a £2000 gift . Since its creation it has been awarded 21 times , and unlike other Royal Society medals such as the Royal Medal , it has never been awarded to the same person multiple times . Citizens of the United Kingdom have won the medal 19 out of the 21 times ; the two foreign recipients have been Man Mohan Sharma , an Indian citizen who was awarded the medal in 1996 for his work on the dynamics of multi-phase chemical reactions in industrial processes , and Frank Caruso , Australian chemical engineer , awarded the medal in 2019 . Two of the Leverhulme Medal winners also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry : Archer John Porter Martin , who won the medal in 1963 for his distinguished and fundamental discoveries in chromatography and its application and the Nobel Prize in 1952 , and Cyril Norman Hinshelwood , who won the medal in 1960 for his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry and the Nobel Prize in 1956 . Anne Neville became the first woman to receive the award in 2016 .
Francesco Caruso FRS FAA ( born 1 January 1968 ) is Melbourne Laureate Professor and National Health and Medical Research Council ( NHMRC ) Senior Principal Research Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Melbourne , Australia . Caruso is Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council ( ARC ) Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nanoscience and Technology .
The Royal Medal , also known as The Queen 's Medal and The King 's Medal ( depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award ) , is a silver-gilt medal , of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society , two for the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge and one for distinguished contributions in the applied sciences , done within the Commonwealth of Nations . The award was created by George IV and awarded first during 1826 . Initially there were two medals awarded , both for the most important discovery within the year previous , a time period which was lengthened to five years and then shortened to three . The format was endorsed by William IV and Victoria , who had the conditions changed during 1837 so that mathematics was a subject for which a Royal Medal could be awarded , albeit only every third year . The conditions were changed again during 1850 so that :
Dame Carol Vivien Robinson , DBE FRS FMedSci ( née Bradley , born 10 April 1956 ) is a British chemist and President of the Royal Society of Chemistry . She is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford , as well as the Dr Lee 's Professor of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry , and a Professorial Fellow at Exeter College . She was previously Professor of Mass Spectrometry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cambridge .
Michel Goedert FRS , FMedSci is a Luxembourgish-British neuroscientist and former Head of Neurobiology , at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology . Goedert was born and raised in Luxembourg . After finishing his medical studies at the University of Basel in 1986 , he started working at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology affiliated with the University of Cambridge . Goedert was awarded the Potamkin Prize in 1998 and the European Grand Prix for Research by the Foundation for Research on Alzheimer 's disease in 2014 . In 2018 he was one of four recipients of the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize with the citation For their groundbreaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer 's disease , with far-reaching implications for the development of new therapeutic interventions as well as for the understanding of other neurodegenerative diseases of the brain . In 2019 he received the Royal Medal . and the Rainwater Charitable Foundation prize for outstanding innovation in neurodegenerative disorder research . He is married to Maria Grazia Spillantini , a geneticist with whom he have one son , Thomas .
Dame Ann Patricia Dowling OM DBE FRS FREng ( born 15 July 1952 ) is a British mechanical engineer who researches combustion , acoustics and vibration , focusing on efficient , low-emission combustion and reduced road vehicle and aircraft noise . Dowling is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering , and from 2009 to 2014 she was Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge , where she was the first female professor in 1993 . She was President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2014-2019 , the Academy 's first female president .
General
Sir Benjamin Thompson , Count Rumford , FRS ( German : Reichsgraf von Rumford ; March 26 , 1753 - August 21 , 1814 ) was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th-century revolution in thermodynamics . He served as lieutenant-colonel of the King 's American Dragoons , part of the British Loyalist forces , during the American Revolutionary War . After the end of the war he moved to London , where his administrative talents were recognized when he was appointed a full colonel , and in 1784 he received a knighthood from King George III . A prolific designer , Thompson also drew designs for warships . He later moved to Bavaria and entered government service there , being appointed Bavarian Army Minister and re-organizing the army , and , in 1791 , was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire .
Miles John Padgett , FRS FRSE FInstP ( born 1 June 1963 ) is Professor of Optics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow . He has held the Kelvin Chair of Natural Philosophy since 2011 and has served as Vice Principal for research at Glasgow since 2014 .
The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded by the Royal Society ( London ) for the encouragement of mathematical research , and accompanied by a £1,000 prize . It was named in honour of James Joseph Sylvester , the Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford in the 1880s , and first awarded in 1901 , having been suggested by a group of Sylvester 's friends ( primarily Raphael Meldola ) after his death in 1897 . Initially awarded every three years with a prize of around £900 , the Royal Society have announced that starting in 2009 it will be awarded every two years instead , and is to be aimed at 'early to mid career stage scientist ' rather than an established mathematician . The award winner is chosen by the Society 's A-side awards committee , which handles physical rather than biological science awards . As of 2019 , 43 medals have been awarded , of which all but 10 have been awarded to citizens of the United Kingdom , two to citizens of France and United States , and one medal each has been won by citizens of New Zealand , Germany , Austria , Russia , Italy , Sweden and South Africa . Only two women ( Mary Cartwright and Dusa McDuff ) have ever won the medal .
Peter Clive Sarnak FRS MAE ( born 18 December 1953 ) is a South African-born mathematician with dual South-African and American nationalities . Sarnak has been a member of the permanent faculty of the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study since 2007 . He is also Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University since 2002 , succeeding Andrew Wiles , and is an editor of the Annals of Mathematics . He is known for his work in analytic number theory . He also sits on the Board of Adjudicators and the selection committee for the Mathematics award , given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize .