Interdisciplinary Prizes
The Interdisciplinary Prizes are awarded for work at the interface between chemistry and other disciplines.
Details
| Status | Closed |
|---|---|
| Nominations opening date | 21 October 2025 12:00am |
| Nominations closing date | 14 January 2026 12:00am |
| Nominator eligibility | ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø members |
| Nominee eligibility | Individuals |
| Nominee location | UK and Ireland |
| Career stage | All career stages |
Previous winners
Professor Ali Tavassoli
University of Southampton, UK
2025 Interdisciplinary Prize: awarded for the high-throughput intracellular production and screening of cyclic peptide libraries, and their applica...
2025 Interdisciplinary Prizes
Professor Cameron Alexander
University of Nottingham, UK
2025 Interdisciplinary Prize: awarded for interdisciplinary research at the boundaries of chemistry, bio-responsive materials, and medicine.
2025 Interdisciplinary Prizes
Professor Duncan Graham
University of Strathclyde, UK
2025 Interdisciplinary Prize: awarded for forging interdisciplinary collaborations that demonstrate the power of Raman spectroscopy as an enabling...
2025 Interdisciplinary Prizes
About this prize
Nominations for this prize will close on Wednesday 14 January 2026 at 17:00 GMT.
The Interdisciplinary Prizes are awarded for work at the interface between chemistry and other disciplines.
The spirit of the Interdisciplinary Prize is to recognise research involving both the broad and evolving subject of chemistry and another discipline.
- Run annually
- Up to three prizes are available
- Winners receive £5000, a medal and a certificate
- Winners will complete UK lecture tours
- Winners are selected by the ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Prize Committee
Eligibility
Individuals named in any of the following roles during the nomination and judging period are not eligible to nominate or be nominated:
- ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Prize Committee members
- ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Subject Community Presidents
- Trustees of the ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø of Chemistry
- ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø of Chemistry staff
Nominators:
- Only ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø members can nominate for this prize.
- Nominees may NOT nominate themselves.
Nominees:
- The prize is open to nominees working in the UK and Ireland only.
- There are no career stage restrictions associated with this prize.
- Nominees can only be considered for one of our Research & Innovation Prizes in any given year. In a case where a nominee is nominated for more than one prize independently, ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø staff will ask the nominee which prize they would like to be considered for.
- We will not consider nominations of deceased individuals.
- We particularly encourage nominations of disabled people, those who work part-time, or whose career has spanned a break for any reason – for example, a period of parental or adoption leave, caring responsibilities, long-term illness, family commitments, or other circumstances. We understand that these can impact a nominee’s career in different ways, and encourage nominators to use the space provided on the nomination form to explain the nature and impact of the nominees’ individual circumstances (see 'Guidelines for Nominators' for further details).
General information
- When nominating previous ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø prize winners, please remember that a person cannot be awarded twice for substantially the same body of work.
- Nominees should only be nominated once for this prize in any given prize cycle. In cases where we receive more than one nomination for the same nominee, only one nomination will go forward to judging.
- All unsuccessful nominations from the previous cycle will be retained on our nomination system ahead of the next cycle. To be considered again, nominators must log in, update details, and resubmit the nomination for the following cycle. Please note that reconsideration is no longer automatic.
- ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø staff will write to nominators and nominees to confirm when the nomination window has re-opened. Nominators will receive instructions on how to log in and update the nomination.
Submitting your nomination
Please use our online nominations system to submit the following information:
- Your name, contact details, and ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø membership number (please contact the ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Membership team if you do not know your membership details).Your ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø membership must be confirmed at the point of nomination – it is not sufficient to have a membership application in process. The identity of nominators is not made known to our judging panels. The ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø reserves the right to amend nominations if necessary to ensure the anonymity of the nominator.
- Your nominee's name and contact details.
- An up to date CV for the nominee (no longer than one A4 side, 11pt text) which should include a summary of their education and career, and a maximum of 5 relevant publications or patents.
- Any information related to career breaks taken by your nominee - for example, a period of parental or adoption leave, caring responsibilities, long-term illness, family commitments, as well as any other circumstances including long-term conditions or disabilities. We understand that these can impact a nominee's career in different ways, and encourage nominators to use the space provided on the noination form to explain the nature and impact of the nominee's individual circumstances. This information will be shared with the committee, but before doing so ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø staff will always seek consent from the nominee in cases where special category data is mentioned.
- A short citation describing what the nominee should be awarded for. This must be no longer than 250 characters (including spaces) and no longer than one sentence.
- A supporting statement (up to 750 words) addressing the selection criteria. Our guidance for nominators page has more information on writing this supporting statement.
- A statement (up to 100 words) describing how your nominee has contributed more broadly to the scientific community. A list of possible examples is outlined in the ‘selection criteria’ tab.
- References are not required for this prize and will not be accepted.
The ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø reserves the right to rescind any prize if there are reasonable grounds to do so. All nominators will be asked to confirm that to the best of their knowledge there is no impediment, relating to professional conduct, to their nominee receiving this prize. All prize winners will be asked to sign the ·¬ÇÑÉçÇøâ€™s Code of Conduct Declaration for Recognition.
Our selection panels base their evaluations on the overall quality of relevant contributions and achievements by nominees, in relation to the selection criteria listed below.
The scientific content of any supporting publications, as described in the supporting statement, is much more important than publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which it is published.
The selection panel will consider the following aspects of nominations for this prize:
- Originality of research
- Impact of research
- Quality of publications and/or patents and/or software
- Innovation
- Professional standing
- Collaborations and teamwork
- Other indicators of esteem indicated by the nominator
In an instance where multiple nominees are judged equally meritorious in relation to the above criteria, judging panels have the flexibility to use information provided by the nominator on the nominee’s broader contribution to the chemistry community as an additional criterion.
Examples of relevant contributions could include, but are not limited to:
- Involvement with ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø of Chemistry member groups/networks
- Teaching/demonstrating
- Effective mentorship
- Service on boards, committees or panels
- Leadership in the scientific community
- Peer-reviewer
- Promotion of diversity and inclusion
- Advocacy for chemistry
- Public engagement and outreach
The Interdisciplinary Prizes were established in 1986, to recognise research involving both the broad and evolving subject of chemistry and another discipline.
To reflect the increasing importance of interdisciplinary research, the number of Interdisciplinary Prizes increased in 1999 to a maximum of three winners per year.
| Year | Name | Institution | Citation |
| 2025 | Professor Cameron Alexander | University of Nottingham | Awarded for interdisciplinary research at the boundaries of chemistry, bio-responsive materials, and medicine. |
| 2025 | Professor Duncan Graham | University of Strathclyde | Awarded for forging interdisciplinary collaborations that demonstrate the power of Raman spectroscopy as an enabling capability in the life sciences. |
| 2025 | Professor Ali Tavassoli | University of Southampton and Curve Therapeutics | Awarded for the high-throughput intracellular production and screening of cyclic peptide libraries, and their application in the identification of inhibitors of protein–protein interactions. |
| 2024 | Professor Tim Bugg | University of Warwick | Awarded for the discovery of bacterial enzymes for the degradation of lignin, and their application to the conversion of lignin to renewable chemicals. |
| 2024 | Professor Judith Driscoll | University of Cambridge | Awarded for interdisciplinary work to realise unprecedented properties in a broad variety of functional oxide devices. |
| 2024 | Professor Sébastien Perrier | University of Warwick | Awarded for interdisciplinary research in the synthesis and applications of therapeutic materials. |
| 2023 | Professor Serena Cussen F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | University of Sheffield | Awarded for interdisciplinary and original contributions to the development of new functional materials for energy storage and in-depth study of their local structure and dynamics. |
| 2023 | Professor Nora de Leeuw CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | University of Leeds | Awarded for the development and application of computational chemistry to enable atomic-level insights into biomedical materials for in vivo and nature-inspired catalytic systems. |
| 2023 | Professor Nicholas Long CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | Imperial College London | Awarded for innovative synthetic chemistry applied to the fields of functional materials and biomedical imaging. |
| 2022 | Professor Michael George CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | The University of Nottingham | Awarded for pioneering innovations in flow chemistry, reactor engineering and reaction monitoring for continuous chemical processing. |
| 2022 | Professor Jason Micklefield F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | The University of Manchester | Awarded for innovative research spanning organic chemistry to molecular genetics, leading to the discovery, characterisation, and engineering of many novel enzymes. |
| 2022 | Professor Nguyen T. K. Thanh F·¬ÇÑÉçÇø | University College London | Awarded for outstanding contributions to interdisciplinary research on fundamental understanding of chemical syntheses, physical studies of plasmonic and magnetic nanomaterials for biomedical applications. |
| 2021 | Professor Andrew Cooper | University of Liverpool | Awarded for combining autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence and chemistry to discover materials with new properties. |
| 2021 | Professor Eleanor Schofield | Mary Rose Trust | Awarded for contributions to understanding degradation processes in archaeological materials, cultural heritage science and conservation. |
| 2020 | Professor Chris Abell | University of Cambridge | Awarded for pioneering work on fragment-based drug discovery and microfluidic microdroplets. |
| 2020 | Professor Iain McCulloch | Imperial College London and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | Awarded for advances in the design, synthesis and innovative application of functional materials in optics, electronics, and energy. |
| 2020 | Professor Emma Raven | University of Bristol | Awarded for seminal contributions to understanding the roles of heme in biology. |
| 2019 | Professor Mark Bradley | University of Edinburgh | Awarded for highly influential and pioneering work in the area of optical medical imaging. |
| 2019 | Professor Christopher Schofield | University of Oxford | Awarded for pioneering work on the mechanisms of activity and resistance to antibiotics. |
| 2019 | Professor Nigel Scrutton | The University of Manchester | Awarded for outstanding contributions to enzyme and photoreceptor biophysics and catalysis. |
| 2018 | Professor Leroy Cronin | University of Glasgow | Awarded for work exploring complex chemical systems and digitising chemistry using artificial intelligence. |
| 2018 | Dr Judy Hirst | University of Cambridge | Awarded for combining structural, biochemical and physical chemical techniques to pioneer studies of energy conversion in complex redox enzymes. |
| 2018 | Professor Barrie Wilkinson | John Innes Centre | Awarded for combining molecular biology, enzymology and chemistry in the engineering of biosynthetic pathways to microbial metabolites. |
| 2017 | Professor Greg Challis | University of Warwick | Awarded for outstanding contributions to the discovery and mechanistic illumination of novel natural product biosynthetic enzymes. |
| 2017 | Professor Melinda Duer | University of Cambridge | Awarded for solid-state NMR spectroscopy and computational methods applied to the elucidation of structure and molecular interactions in calcified tissues. |
| 2017 | Professor Fiona Meldrum | University of Leeds | Awarded for contributions to understanding biomineralization processes and exploiting bio-inspired strategies to control the structure and properties of crystalline materials. |
| 2016 | Professor Jörg Feldmann | University of Aberdeen | Awarded for the development of analytical systems to unravel biological metal metabolites. |
| 2016 | Professor Peter Hore | University of Oxford | Awarded for his outstanding contributions to understanding biological structure and function using the phenomenon of spin. |
| 2016 | Professor Dek Woolfson | University of Bristol | Awarded for his contributions to understanding sequence-to-structure relationships in natural proteins, and using these to design entirely new protein folds and assemblies. |
| 2015 | Professor Elaine Holmes | Imperial College London | Awarded for outstanding contributions to metabolic phenotyping and systems biology leading to novel biomarkers and mechanistic insights into toxicity and disease. |
| 2015 | Professor Sarah (Sally) Price | University College London | Awarded for transforming our understanding of the subtle differences in the crystalline organic solid state energy landscape and discovering new physical forms of organic molecules. |
| 2015 | Professor Anthony Watts | University of Oxford | Awarded for pioneering new solid state NMR techniques that have revealed the functional significance of conformational dynamics in biomembrane complexes of ligands and small molecules. |
| 2014 | Professor Steven Armes | The University of Sheffield | Awarded for his significant contribution to our current understanding of micrometeorites and the behaviour of cosmic dust particles. |
| 2014 | Professor Sabine Flitsch | University of Manchester | Awarded for her significant contributions in biological chemistry, in particular in carbohydrate chemistry and glycobiology. |
| 2014 | Professor Richard Pancost | University of Bristol | Awarded for the use of analytical chemistry in the identification and stable isotope characterisation of lipid biomarkers to questions related to global environmental change. |
| 2013 | Professor James Barber | Imperial College London | Awarded for his elucidation of the mechanism of water oxidation in higher plants, and his application of natural photosynthetic principles to the development of artificial photosynthetic systems, open up new avenues in solar energy research. |
| 2013 | Professor Jane Clarke | University of Cambridge | Awarded for her pioneering work in the application of atomic force microscopy (AMF) to study folding in families of proteins. |
| 2012 | Professor Hagan Bayley | University of Oxford | Awarded for his seminal studies of engineered protein pores offering insight into the basis of pore assembly and function, and enabling diverse applications, including single-molecule sensing and the construction of artificial tissues. |
| 2011 | Carol Robinson | University of Oxford | Award for her development of a new area of research, gas-phase structural biology, using highly refined mass spectrometry techniques. |
| 2010 | Alexei Kornyshev | Imperial College London | Awarded for his many outstanding contributions at the interfaces of chemistry with both physics and with biology. |
| 2010 | Barry Potter | University of Bath | Awarded for his innovative application of techniques in synthetic organic chemistry to challenges in biology and medicine. His broad ranging studies have addressed both fundamental and applied challenges. |
| 2009 | Tom Brown | University of Southampton | Awarded for his many innovative contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and its application to problems at the chemistry biology interface. |
| 2009 | Bonnie Ann Wallace | Birkbeck College, University of London | Awarded for her work in developing applications of synchrotron radiation circular dichroism spectroscopy as a tool in chemistry, structural genomics, biochemistry and chemical biology. |
| 2008 | Not awarded this year | ||
| 2007 | Professor David Klenerman | University of Cambridge | Awarded for original applications in the life sciences of new biophysical methods based on laser fluorescence spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy. |
| 2007 | Professor Jeremy Nicholson | Imperial College London | Awarded for his contributions to chemical biology, particularly mechanistic insights into disease and toxicity through the development of the field of metabonomics. |
| 2006 | Professor J W Goodby | University of York | Awarded for his contributions to the understanding of ferroelectricity in liquid crystals, alignment mechanisms in devices and deducing novel structures, especially in frustrated phases. |
| 2006 | Professor D Lilley | University of Dundee | Awarded for his chemical and mechanistic insight in solving problems in chemical biology, particularly his work on RNA folding and resulting catalytic activity. |
| 2005 | Professor Fraser A Armstrong | University of Oxford | Awarded for pioneering interdisciplinary research that has led to the resolution of some of the complicated catalytic reactions and active-site transformations of hydrogenases - enzymes of great importance for hydrogen energy technology. |
| 2005 | Professor Steven M Howdle | University of Nottingham | Awarded for his contributions to the development of polymers and bioactive materials using supercritical fluids. |
| 2005 | Mr Raymond White | National Gallery, London | Awarded for groundbreaking contributions to the chemical investigation of natural products used in artworks and cultural heritage objects in support of restoration practices and the reconstruction of past technologies. |
| 2004 | Professor Douglas B Kell | University of Manchester | Awarded for his contributions to bioanalytical science and the application of molecular and numerical approaches to the study of biological systems. |
| 2004 | Professor David A Leigh | University of Edinburgh | Awarded for his work on the development of synthetic molecular motors and machines. |
| 2003 | Professor Richard P Evershed | University of Bristol | Awarded for his international recognition as an analytical organic geochemist and the leading exponent of biomolecular archaeology who has revolutionized aspects of archaeological science. |
| 2003 | Professor David W Young | University of Sussex | Awarded for his brilliant contributions to the organic chemistry of enzymes of importance in biology and medicine over many years. |
| 2002 | P J Bruce | ||
| 2002 | S Neidle | ||
| 2001 | Steve K Chapman | University of Edinburgh | Awarded for research into the structure, function and mechanism of action of flavocytochromes, particularly flavocytochrome b2 and cytochrome P450. |
| 2001 | W Jim Feast | Durham University | Awarded for the development of polymer chemistry to enable processible semiconducting polymers which can be exploited in a wide range of semiconductor device applications. |
| 2000 | Martyn Poliakoff | University of Nottingham | Awarded for research into the applications of supercritical fluids in chemistry. |
| 2000 | Andrew J Thomson | University of East Anglia | Awarded for the application of magnetic and optical spectroscopic methods to elucidate the functional roles of transition metals in biology. |
| 1999 | Professor Chris M Dobson | University of Oxford | Awarded for research at the interface of chemistry with biology and medicine. |
| 1999 | Professor Stephen Mann | University of Bristol | Awarded for research into the interface between biomineralisation and materials chemistry. |
| 1999 | Professor Christopher Viney | Heriot-Watt University | Awarded for research into biomolecular materials, polymers and liquid crystals. |
| 1998 | C Richard A Catlow | The Royal Institution | Awarded for synthetic, structural and computational studies including many of industrial importance. |
| 1998 | Chris T Evans | Merlin Ventures | Awarded for the development of biotechnology for the production of usefulmaterials and essential services. |
| 1997 | Ruth Duncan | School of Pharmacy, London | Awarded for research and development of Polymeric Anticancer Agent - from Laboratory to Clinic. |
| 1997 | Peter J Sarre | University of Nottingham | Awarded for contributions to astrophysical chemistry. |
| 1996 | Peter Gregory | Zeneca Specialists | Awarded for contributions to the area of high technology applications of organic colourants. |
| 1995 | David Parker | Durham University | Awarded for contributions in the area of tailored complexes and conjugates for imaging and therapy. |
| 1994 | James R Maxwell | University of Bristol | Awarded for the use of chemistry in exploring geology. |
| 1993 | J John Holbrook | University of Bristol | Awarded for the redesign of enzymes for the synthesis of homochiral molecules. |
| 1992 | Martin R Bryce | Durham University | Awarded for research into the synthesis of organic materials with unusual solid state properties. |
| 1992 | Dennis Chapman | Royal Free Hospital, School of Medicine | Awarded for research into biomembranes and biomaterials. |
| 1991 | Richard H Friend | University of Cambridge | Awarded for research into the electronic properties of organic polymers and related materials. |
| 1991 | Malcolm F G Stevens | Aston University | Awarded for research and development of anticancer drugs - from the laboratory bench to the clinic. |
| 1990 | John A Pyle | University of Cambridge | Awarded for research into atmospheric chemistry. |
| 1989 | Laurie J King | University of Surrey | Awarded for research into toxicology. |
| 1988 | Brian J Briscoe | Imperial College London | Awardedfor contributions to interface science and engineering, material science and environmental sensors |
| 1987 | Laurie D Hall | University of Cambridge | Awarded for research and development of NMR as a structural tool for carbohydrate chemistry. |
| 1987 | John E Harris | National Power | Awarded for research into corrosion. |
| 1986 | H Allen O Hill | University of Oxford | Awarded for research into bioinorganic chemistry, electrochemistry and enzyme reactions. |
| 1986 | Michael Jarman | Institute of Cancer Research | Awarded for research into drug metabolism. |
Contact our prizes team
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Research & Innovation Prizes
Our Research & Innovation Prizes recognise brilliant chemical scientists carrying out amazing work in academia and industry. They include prizes for those at different career stages in chemistry and for those working in specific fields, as well as interdisciplinary prizes and prizes for those in specific roles
Judging panel
David Rees
Astex Pharmaceuticals
Professor Mark Bradley
Queen Mary University of London, UK
Professor Claire Carmalt
University College London, UK
Professor Matthew Davies
Swansea University, UK
Dr Anabel Lanterna
University of Nottingham, UK
Professor AnnMarie O'Donoghue
Durham University, UK
Professor Neil Robertson
University of Edinburgh, UK
Dr Helen Ryder
University of Manchester, UK