2020 prizes and awards winners announced
Today we announce the 2020 winners of our prizes and awards, and unveil a new-look digital gallery.
We are recognising more than 80 individuals and teams for their exceptional achievements in advancing the chemical sciences through their work in everything from education and research, to innovation, policy and volunteering.
Our new-look website features a winners' gallery and individual profile pages – each containing a photo gallery and a Q&A.
The celebrations are taking place online this year, and we are inviting our community to help make the day really special – by sharing profiles and helping us spread the word about each and every winner.
We hope that this new interactive format will provide a modern and accessible way for each of our winners to be celebrated by their colleagues and the wider community, as well as enabling all of us to learn more about the research, volunteer work, collaborations, teaching, and more being carried out across the chemical sciences.
Our new approach moves us closer to our goal – set out in the recent Review of Recognition – to raise the visibility of chemistry, raise the profiles of our winners, and make our celebrations as accessible and inclusive as possible.
We have also launched a new video, filmed over video conferencing software during lockdown, which features six of our winners and two of our judges.
We live in an era of tremendous global challenges – challenges that science and scientists will play a vital role in solving – now more than ever. With this in mind, it is our honour and privilege to recognise the exceptional achievements of this year’s prizes and awards winners, all of whom work to improve the world we live in.
The global chemical sciences community is one that covers many different specialisms, from health and climate change to product development, sustainable transport, and everything in between. And educators at all levels are crucial to equipping future generations with the chemical knowledge to make a difference. Our membership and the wider community also include a huge number of those who volunteer their time – going above and beyond to support their colleagues, inspire young people, and engage others with the wonders of the chemical sciences.
Our recent review of recognition highlighted a need to evolve to a more modern, inclusive way of recognising excellence and we are proud to be taking the first steps towards that with our new digital gallery that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere.
In celebrating the work of all our winners – including teams, technicians, teachers and volunteers – we are recognising the important contribution these incredible scientists make to improving our lives every day.
Take part and discover more
- Head to our gallery to discover and share the stories of these inspirational chemical scientists.
- Follow #RSCAwards on Twitter or visit our Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram pages.
- You don’t need a social media account to take part – there’s lots to explore across our winner pages, and on each page you’ll find buttons enabling you to share and celebrate our winners by email.
- We have also collected together some of the exciting research recently published by our winners, across our journals portflio. These articles are free to access until 30 September 2020.
Summer celebrations
This day of celebration is just the beginning. Between 26 June and 8 July we are publishing six in-depth articles exploring how our winners have contributed to society in a variety of ways – including education, leadership, and fundamental research.
We also hope this approach will encourage new audiences – who may not have engaged with our prizes and awards before – to explore these fascinating heroes of chemistry, and be inspired by their achievements.
Our series of summer celebrations will culminate in our AGM on 8 July. This event will feature a special lecture by Tom Welton, as well as a conversation between our Acting CEO Helen Pain, Tom Welton, and Carol Robinson talking about their highlights from the year and our aspirations for the future of chemistry. We will also be publicly debuting a new video that tells the story of how chemistry and the RSC have successfully adapted to change in the past, and will do so in the future.
Rethinking recognition
This year we have taken the first steps towards evolving the way we recognise great science – by making our celebrations as inclusive as we can, and showcasing the ways in which our winners contribute to education, leadership, solving global challenges and more.
Read more on how we are making our recognition programmes fit for the modern world.
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