Copley medallist 2020
Sir Alan Fersht FMedSci FRS
The Copley Medal 2020 is awarded to Sir Alan Fersht FMedSci FRS. He has developed and applied the methods of protein engineering to provide descriptions of protein folding pathways at atomic resolution, revolutionising our understanding of these processes.
Sir Alan will be presented with a medal and a gift of £25,000 at the Royal Society at a future date.
Return to this year's Royal Society medal, award and prize winners.
The award
The Copley Medal is the Society’s oldest and most prestigious award. The medal is awarded for outstanding achievements in research
in any branch of science.
First awarded in 1731 following donations from Godfrey Copley FRS (PDF), it was initially awarded for the most important scientific discovery or for the greatest contribution made by experiment. The Copley Medal is thought to be the world's oldest scientific prize and it was awarded 170 years before the first Nobel Prize. Notable winners include Benjamin Franklin, Dorothy Hodgkin, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. The medal is of silver gilt, is awarded annually, alternating between the physical and biological sciences (odd and even years respectively), and is accompanied by a a gift of £25,000.
Nominations
The call for nominations is now closed. The next round of nominations will open in Novemeber 2020.
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Past winners
Professor John Goodenough ForMemRS was awarded the Copley Medal 2019 in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the science and technology of materials, including his discovery that led to rechargeable lithium batteries
Professor Jeffrey Gordon was awarded the Copley Medal 2018 for his contributions to understanding the role of gut microbial communities to human health and disease.
Sir Andrew Wiles KBE FRS was awarded the Copley Medal 2017 for his beautiful and unexpected proof of Fermat's Last Theorem which is one of the most important mathematical achievements of the 20th century.
To find out more about past winners you can read this series of blogs.
See full list of all past winners of the Copley Medal.