Funding & Awards → Prizes & Medals

Prizes & Medals

The RSE currently awards the following Prizes and Medals. A list of earlier prizes and their recipients is available here.

Royal Medal

Royal Medals are awarded for distinction and international repute in any of the following categories: Life Sciences; Physical and Engineering Sciences; Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Business and Commerce.  The 2011 Medallists were Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws; Professor Noreen Murray and Professor S Desmond Smith.

Senior and Early Career Prizes

Senior Prize-winners will receive a medal. They are required to deliver a lecture in Scotland and related travel and subsistence costs will be met.  This award meets with the Society’s strategic objective of increasing public understanding of science and the arts and humanities.  The Senior Prize-winners are required to have a Scottish connection but can be based anywhere in the world.

Early Career Researcher Prize-winners will receive a medal which will be presented on the occasion of the lecture delivered by the Senior Prize-winner.  The early career researcher will normally be resident in Scotland.  An “early career researcher” is defined as “a researcher with a minimum of two years postdoctoral work experience and no more than ten years postdoctoral work experience" (ie research fellows to lecturers in their first academic posts are eligible).

The closing date for Senior and Early Career Prize nominations is 30 November 2011.

Senior and Early Career Prizes are available in Life Sciences, Physical, Engineering and Informatics Science, Humanities and Creative Arts, and Social Sciences, Education, Business and Public Service

Joint Prizes

The RSE/BP Hutton Prize in Energy Innovation.

The RSE/BP Hutton Prize in Energy Innovation is awarded for a significant individual contribution to energy innovation through research and knowledge exchange.

The IEEE/RSE/Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award

The IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award recognizes groundbreaking contributions that have had an exceptional impact on the development of electronics and electrical engineering or related fields. 

RSE Beltane Prize for Public Engagement Senior Prize

The RSE Beltane Prizes for Public Engagement seek to recognize and promote excellence in the ‎emerging field of Public Engagement. A Senior Prize and Innovator's Prize are awarded.

Other Prizes

Cormack Postgraduate Prize

The Cormack Postgraduate Prize is awarded annually to recognise and reward the most outstanding postgraduate student contribution to astronomical research in Scotland.  Next deadline 2 April 2012