Congratulations to the 2023 Prize Winners in the organic chemistry community

Through its prizes programme, the Organic Chemistry Community celebrates the individuals and teams from industry and academic across all career stages who contribute to the advances in organic chemistry as well as recognising the novel discoveries in the field of organic chemistry.

Winners are selected by the Organic Chemistry Prize Committee, chaired by the Organic Chemistry Community President.

Members of the organic chemistry community are also recognised throughout the whole RSC Prize portfolio, congratulations to all the 2023 Prize Winners. 

Click on the links to find more about our 2023 winners and join in the digital celebration.

Congratulations to the Organic Chemistry Research & Innovation Prize winners:

Organic Division Early Career Prize:

Hickinbottom Prize winner Dr Matthew Grayson (University of Bath) for enabling rational organic reactivity design through the use and development of computational methods.

Organic Division Mid-Career Prize:

Merck, Sharp & Dohme Prize winner Professor Stephen Fletcher (University of Oxford) for the development of asymmetric Suzuki-Miyaura-type and other catalytic cross-coupling reactions with racemic starting materials.

Organic Division Open Prize:

Pedler Prize winner Professor Antonio Echavarren (Institut Català d'Investigació Química) for pioneering contributions to the field of organic chemistry employing gold catalysis.

Bader Prize Winner:

Professor Marc Vendrell (The University of Edinburgh) for the design and synthesis of activatable fluorophores, and their application in high-resolution biological imaging and translational medicine.

Congratulations to the 2023 Organic Chemistry Horizon Prize winners:

Perkin Prize in Physical Organic Chemistry Winner:

The Molecular Ratcheteers (researchers from the University of Manchester, University of Luxembourg, University of Maine and East China Normal University) for breakthroughs in catalysed non-equilibrium systems, particularly molecular ratchet mechanisms, that have provided fundamental insights into the dynamics of matter.

Congratulations also to RSC Prize winners from across the organic community, including:

Dr Andrea Laybourn (University of Nottingham) winner of the 2023 Barrer Award, for outstanding contributions towards developing the sustainable synthesis of porous materials, with a particular emphasis on microwave and continuous flow synthesis.

Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik (Queensland University of Technology) winner of the 2023 Centenary Prize, for the development and photophysical understanding of precision macromolecular photochemistry, and for excellence in communication.

Professor Mark Grinstaff (Boston University) winner of the 2023 Centenary Prize, for pioneering advances and translational research using innovative polymer platforms for new drug delivery systems and medical applications, and for excellence in communication. 

Emily Rose (Pfizer) winner of the 2023 Chemical Sciences Apprentice of the Year, for outstanding contributions towards the development of synthetic routes and processes for emerging medicines via autonomous high-throughput experimentation workflows, and contributions to STEM activities.

Dr Stephen Wallace (The University of Edinburgh) 2023 Chemistry Biology Interface early career Prize: Norman Heatley Award, for the development of chemical tools and microbial biocatalysts for sustainable synthesis.

Dr James Paterson (bp) winner of the 2023 Creativity in Industry Prize, for contributions in developing a new catalyst and reactor system for bp’s Fischer-Tropsch technology and low carbon fuels platform.

Professor Anna Slater (University of Liverpool) winner of the 2023 Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize, for the development of innovative tools, particularly flow chemistry processes, to control the formation of supramolecular materials.

Professor Nicholas Long (Imperial College London) winner of the 2023 Interdisciplinary Prize, for innovative synthetic chemistry applied to the fields of functional materials and biomedical imaging

Dr Sam Staniland (AstraZeneca) 2023 Rising Star in Industry Prize, for impact on the progression of multiple pharmaceutical projects by the application of bio- and chemocatalysis and high-throughput experimentation.

Professor Darren Dixon (University of Oxford) winner of the 2023 Tilden Prize, for the discovery, development and applications of iridium-catalysed reductive functionalisation of amides and lactams.

Find out more