Royal Society Research Culture Award

Research Culture award 2022 winner

Dr Mark Richards

The inaugural Royal Society Research Culture Award 2022 is awarded to Dr Mark Richards for his inspiring contribution to, advocacy of, and commitment to increasing equity in physics, including the development of the UK’s first network of Black physicists: the Blackett Lab Family. 

The award

New for 2022, the Royal Society Research Culture Award is awarded annually to an individual or team for outstanding and sustained work in the improvement of the research system/research culture.

The award will recognise a wide variety of contributions to improving science including, but not limited to:

• individuals who have gone beyond the normal expectations as a sponsor or mentor, who have contributed to improving scientific careers, or contributed to improve diversity
• individuals or teams who have made significant contributions to open science practices such as sharing data, code, software or reagents, developing cell lines, building repositories for other scientists to make use of, preprint servers, AI tools for intelligently searching the literature, text and data mining innovations, open experimental protocols, novel open peer review platforms etc
• individuals or teams who have supported others in their scientific careers, made significant contributions to improving the culture, environment and working conditions for researchers, or to improving appointment and promotion practices; efforts to promote research integrity, reproducibility and good research practices; campaigning or advocacy to promote science and its benefits, or to attract attention to important scientific issues; contributions to open access publishing; and technological innovations in support of research

The award winner or winners will be presented with a medal of silver gilt and a gift of £2000.

The terms and conditions (PDF) for the Royal Society Research Culture Award should be read before submitting a nomination. 

Nominations

Nominations for this award will open in November 2023.

Eligibility

The Royal Society Research Culture Award is open to UK/Commonwealth/Republic of Ireland citizens or those who have been residents for three or more years. There are no restrictions on career stage and nominations will remain valid and shall be considered by the award selection committee throughout three nomination cycles. Teams or groups may be nominated for this award.