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Awards, medals and prize lectures

The Royal Society's Medals, Awards, Prizes and Prize Lectures are an important part of our work in recognising excellence in science across the disciplines and exist to reward those who have made outstanding achievements.

The Royal Society awards 10 medals, 6 prizes (awards) and 9 prize lectureships variously annually, biennially or triennially, according to the terms of reference for each award.

Left to right: Hughes Medal, Davy Medal, Buchanan Medal, Royal Medal, Michael Faraday Medal, Darwin Medal, Sylvester Medal

The medals, prize lectures and awards cover a variety of science, engineering and technology topics: for example, the Davy medal is awarded for a recent discovery in chemistry and the Ferrier lecture is given triennially on the structure and function of the nervous system.

The medals and prize lectureships have been instituted at various times since 1731, and most owe their existence to the generosity of donors. Each award is accompanied by an honorarium that is funded by the Society's private funds.

The recipients of Royal Society medals and prize lectures are selected by the Physical or Biological Sciences Awards Committees. The Committees are made up of Fellows of the Society, and are chaired by the Physical and Biological Secretaries respectively. Anyone can nominate, using our online forms.

The eight awards have been endowed by other organisations: the Mullard Award, the Michael Faraday Prize, the GlaxoSmithKline Prize, the Armourers and Brasiers Company Award, the Rosalind Franklin Award (supported by the DTI), the Royal Society and Académie des Sciences Microsoft European Science Award, the Royal Society Pfizer Award and the Kohn Award. These Awards are selected by separate Committees, and nominations are open to all.

The Society also organises the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books, an annual award for popular science writing.