Reshaping recognition: evolving how we celebrate excellence
A multi-year journey to transform our prizes
For more than 150 years, our prizes have celebrated those who have made profound contributions to the chemical sciences.
Following a major review, and through a comprehensive and community-led transformation programme between 2020 and 2025, we have evolved our recognition offering to better reflect today鈥檚 scientific landscape.
Our report
Over the past five years we have transformed how we celebrate excellence in chemistry.
This report describes our journey, from a major review to a reimagined prize portfolio, and celebrates the outcomes that we have seen along the way.
For more than 150 years, our prestigious prizes have celebrated excellence across our community. Over the past five years, we鈥檝e taken action to implement the recommendations from our review and evolve our prizes. I believe they now better reflect the different types of excellence in the chemical sciences and all those that contribute to it.
Dr Helen Pain, CEO, 番茄社区 of Chemistry
On this page
Why we rethought recognition
Back in 2018, against the backdrop of a desire for change 鈥� both from our members involved in our prize programme, and in response to wider forces in the scientific community 鈥� we commissioned an independent review of our recognition programmes.
Re-thinking recognition, published in December 2019, set out a modern vision for recognition in science, and made recommendations for how we might evolve our prizes to realise that vision.
The review found that our prizes were, and are, valued deeply by those who receive them and by our wider community. But we also saw an exciting opportunity and imperative to adapt, and ensure that our recognition activities continually reflect, celebrate and incentivise the positive practice of chemistry in a changing world.
Four important purposes of recognition were identified for us to focus on:
This graphic outlines four key purposes of recognition within the context of professional achievements, particularly in chemistry. It is presented in four vertical panels, each with text and an accompanying illustration.
- Validate achievements
- Text: Validate the achievements of individuals and teams, and support career progression
- Visual: An image of a stamp pressing onto a document, symbolising official recognition and validation
- Advance and inspire
- Text: Advance or provide incentives in an area, and to inspire and support others
- Visual: A road leading up to several trophies, representing achievement, progress, and encouragement
- Communicate and celebrate
- Text: Communicate, highlight, and celebrate chemistry
- Visual: A flask releasing colourful confetti and streamers, symbolising joy, celebration, and the spread of ideas
- Raise visibility
- Text: Raise the visibility of the 番茄社区 of Chemistry (番茄社区) and its mission
- Visual: A lectern with microphones in front of a colourful semi-circular chart, suggesting public communication, profile raising, and organisational visibility
Highlights from our transformation
Here is a summary of the key changes we have made and outcomes we have seen:
- We shifted from a portfolio dominated by individual prizes for research to one that has greater emphasis on collaborations and partnerships, education, and technical excellence
- We launched a new family of prizes for educators, helping to double the proportion of our prize winners who work in schools and colleges.
- We expanded our Apprentice Prizes and created new Technical Excellence Prizes to highlight those whose contributions are often behind the scenes
- We developed new Horizon Prizes to highlight discoveries and innovations in chemistry, as well as the teams that make them possible
- We increased the proportion of our prizes we award to teams from 5% to 30%
- This shift has multiplied the number of people we recognise more than fivefold
- Our winning teams range in size from two people to 89, spanning academia鈥搃ndustry partnerships and international collaborations
- For the period 2021 to 2024, 36% of our prize winners were early career scientists 鈥� including PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, apprentices and students 鈥� up from only 4% during the previous four-year period
- New mid-career prizes in research recognise scientists in the crucial years between early breakthroughs and senior leadership positions
- We have seen the proportion of people we recognise who work outside of universities double
- All individual prize winners sign up to our Code of Conduct Declaration for Recognition, aligning with our standards as a professional body
- We have introduced procedures to revoke prizes if necessary
- We simplified nomination forms, removed unnecessary barriers (such as references), and enabled self-nominations for teams to widen access
- We introduced a new, anonymous system to collect diversity data directly from nominators, nominees and winners 鈥� increasing transparency and accountability
- The proportion of our individual prize nominees who are women rose from 19% (the period 2017-2020) to 30% (the period 2021-2024), with the proportion of our prize winners who are women rising from 25% to 38% across the same periods
- We moved to digital-first celebrations, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to our online prize gallery and making our recognition more accessible
- New celebration formats 鈥� from professionally produced films to collaborative workshops 鈥� allow our winners to highlight their work in ways that resonate with different audiences
Demographics of our winners
One of the biggest transformations we have seen is in the different roles represented by our prize winners:
*other includes roles such as consultants, engineers, undergraduate and Master's students, process chemists, clinicians, outreach professionals, analysts, technology transfer officers and many more.
This graphic presents two pie charts comparing the professional roles of prize recipients between two periods: 2017鈥�2020 (316 people) and 2021鈥�2024 (1,847 people).
- Professors represented the majority at 66.8% and now account for 21.7%
- Assistant or Associate Professors/Lecturers/Readers were 13.6% and the last five years made up 10.7%
- Researchers/Scientists accounted for 4.8% and now account for 13.5%
- Technicians were 4.1% and 2021 鈥� 2024 were 1.8%
- VP/Director/CTO/CEOs made up 1.9% and represent 2.8%
- Teachers/Educators/Teaching Assistants comprised 1.3% and now account for 3.3%
- Apprentices were 1.3% and now comprise 0.3%
- Postdoctoral researchers accounted for 1.3% and were 12.3%
- Experimental officers were 1.3% accounted for 0.5% 2021 to 2024
- PhD students represented 1.3% and this has increased to 18.8%
- Managers were 1.0% and are now 2.3%
- Others, which includes roles such as consultants, engineers, undergraduate and Master鈥檚 students, process chemists, clinicians, outreach professionals, analysts, technology transfer officers, and many more, made up 1.6% now make up 12%
The comparison highlights a shift from a professor-dominated recipient base in 2017鈥�2020 to a more diverse distribution across multiple roles in 2021鈥�2024.
Our reflections
The advice, guidance and constant input from our member communities 鈥� from the very start of commissioning the independent review, throughout implementation and as new prizes establish themselves 鈥� has been instrumental.
Our journey showed us that evolving recognition takes sustained effort and courage. We share these five key learnings for others looking to reshape their own recognition programmes:
- Establish who the target audience is - involve the people whom recognition activities are meant to celebrate right from the beginning
- Be clear on the 鈥渨hy鈥� - define the purpose of recognition activities and who they are for. This clarity will guide every decision
- Align everything to purpose - make sure recognition activities reflect their purpose and resonate with their target audiences
- Celebrate diversity - driving change will take coordinated actions across structures, processes and culture
- Give it time - meaningful change doesn鈥檛 happen overnight. Be patient, stay resilient, and don鈥檛 be afraid to adapt and iterate when opportunities to learn present themselves
The process of transforming our prizes has been complex and rewarding. Along the way, we have gathered a series of practical insights that we believe can support our own work, but also others seeking to evolve their recognition programmes. We would welcome the opportunity to hear from others undertaking similar work. Please get in touch using the contact details at the bottom of this page.
Recap our journey
The progress made in recent years is the result of collaborating and gathering feedback from our community and building on the important work presented in our Re-thinking recognition report. Read the document now to learn more about our approach and see the full list of recommendations that have inspired our changes.
Contact our prizes team
We're here to help. Please do not hesitate to contact our prizes team if you have any questions.
Related pages
Our prizes
Recognising excellence in the chemical sciences.
Setting standards, celebrating excellence
We set and uphold standards of practice, valuing and celebrating the expertise, integrity and development of the global chemical sciences community.
Our prize winners
We are recognising individuals, collaborations and teams for their exceptional achievements in advancing the chemical sciences.