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Interdisciplinary Prizes

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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

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.

 
YearNameInstitutionCitation
2025Professor Cameron AlexanderUniversity of NottinghamAwarded for interdisciplinary research at the boundaries of chemistry, bio-responsive materials, and medicine.
2025Professor 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.
2025Professor Ali TavassoliUniversity of Southampton and Curve TherapeuticsAwarded for the high-throughput intracellular production and screening of cyclic peptide libraries, and their application in the identification of inhibitors of protein–protein interactions.
2024Professor Tim BuggUniversity of WarwickAwarded for the discovery of bacterial enzymes for the degradation of lignin, and their application to the conversion of lignin to renewable chemicals.
2024Professor Judith DriscollUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for interdisciplinary work to realise unprecedented properties in a broad variety of functional oxide devices.
2024Professor Sébastien PerrierUniversity of WarwickAwarded for interdisciplinary research in the synthesis and applications of therapeutic materials.
2023Professor Serena Cussen F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøUniversity of SheffieldAwarded 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.
2023Professor Nora de Leeuw CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøUniversity of LeedsAwarded for the development and application of computational chemistry to enable atomic-level insights into biomedical materials for in vivo and nature-inspired catalytic systems.
2023Professor Nicholas Long CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøImperial College LondonAwarded for innovative synthetic chemistry applied to the fields of functional materials and biomedical imaging.
2022Professor Michael George CChem F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøThe University of NottinghamAwarded for pioneering innovations in flow chemistry, reactor engineering and reaction monitoring for continuous chemical processing.
2022Professor Jason Micklefield F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøThe University of ManchesterAwarded for innovative research spanning organic chemistry to molecular genetics, leading to the discovery, characterisation, and engineering of many novel enzymes. 
2022Professor Nguyen T. K. Thanh F·¬ÇÑÉçÇøUniversity College LondonAwarded for outstanding contributions to interdisciplinary research on fundamental understanding of chemical syntheses, physical studies of plasmonic and magnetic nanomaterials for biomedical applications.
2021Professor Andrew CooperUniversity of LiverpoolAwarded for combining autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence and chemistry to discover materials with new properties.
2021Professor Eleanor SchofieldMary Rose TrustAwarded for contributions to understanding degradation processes in archaeological materials, cultural heritage science and conservation.
2020Professor Chris AbellUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for pioneering work on fragment-based drug discovery and microfluidic microdroplets.
2020Professor Iain McCullochImperial College London and King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyAwarded for advances in the design, synthesis and innovative application of functional materials in optics, electronics, and energy.
2020Professor Emma RavenUniversity of BristolAwarded for seminal contributions to understanding the roles of heme in biology.
2019Professor Mark BradleyUniversity of EdinburghAwarded for highly influential and pioneering work in the area of optical medical imaging.
2019Professor Christopher SchofieldUniversity of OxfordAwarded for pioneering work on the mechanisms of activity and resistance to antibiotics.
2019Professor Nigel ScruttonThe University of ManchesterAwarded for outstanding contributions to enzyme and photoreceptor biophysics and catalysis.
2018Professor Leroy CroninUniversity of GlasgowAwarded for work exploring complex chemical systems and digitising chemistry using artificial intelligence.
2018Dr Judy HirstUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for combining structural, biochemical and physical chemical techniques to pioneer studies of energy conversion in complex redox enzymes.
2018Professor Barrie WilkinsonJohn Innes CentreAwarded for combining molecular biology, enzymology and chemistry in the engineering of biosynthetic pathways to microbial metabolites.
2017Professor Greg ChallisUniversity of WarwickAwarded for outstanding contributions to the discovery and mechanistic illumination of novel natural product biosynthetic enzymes.
2017Professor Melinda DuerUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for solid-state NMR spectroscopy and computational methods applied to the elucidation of structure and molecular interactions in calcified tissues.
2017Professor Fiona MeldrumUniversity of LeedsAwarded for contributions to understanding biomineralization processes and exploiting bio-inspired strategies to control the structure and properties of crystalline materials.
2016Professor Jörg FeldmannUniversity of AberdeenAwarded for the development of analytical systems to unravel biological metal metabolites.
2016Professor Peter HoreUniversity of OxfordAwarded for his outstanding contributions to understanding biological structure and function using the phenomenon of spin.
2016Professor Dek WoolfsonUniversity of BristolAwarded for his contributions to understanding sequence-to-structure relationships in natural proteins, and using these to design entirely new protein folds and assemblies.
2015Professor Elaine HolmesImperial College LondonAwarded for outstanding contributions to metabolic phenotyping and systems biology leading to novel biomarkers and mechanistic insights into toxicity and disease.
2015Professor Sarah (Sally) PriceUniversity College LondonAwarded for transforming our understanding of the subtle differences in the crystalline organic solid state energy landscape and discovering new physical forms of organic molecules.
2015Professor Anthony WattsUniversity of OxfordAwarded for pioneering new solid state NMR techniques that have revealed the functional significance of conformational dynamics in biomembrane complexes of ligands and small molecules.
2014Professor Steven ArmesThe University of SheffieldAwarded for his significant contribution to our current understanding of micrometeorites and the behaviour of cosmic dust particles.
2014Professor Sabine FlitschUniversity of ManchesterAwarded for her significant contributions in biological chemistry, in particular in carbohydrate chemistry and glycobiology.
2014Professor Richard PancostUniversity of BristolAwarded for the use of analytical chemistry in the identification and stable isotope characterisation of lipid biomarkers to questions related to global environmental change.
2013Professor James BarberImperial College LondonAwarded 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.
2013Professor Jane ClarkeUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for her pioneering work in the application of atomic force microscopy (AMF) to study folding in families of proteins.
2012Professor Hagan BayleyUniversity of OxfordAwarded 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.
2011Carol RobinsonUniversity of OxfordAward for her development of a new area of research, gas-phase structural biology, using highly refined mass spectrometry techniques.
2010Alexei KornyshevImperial College LondonAwarded for his many outstanding contributions at the interfaces of chemistry with both physics and with biology.
2010Barry PotterUniversity of BathAwarded 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.
2009Tom BrownUniversity of SouthamptonAwarded for his many innovative contributions to nucleic acid chemistry and its application to problems at the chemistry biology interface.
2009Bonnie Ann WallaceBirkbeck College, University of LondonAwarded for her work in developing applications of synchrotron radiation circular dichroism spectroscopy as a tool in chemistry, structural genomics, biochemistry and chemical biology.
2008Not awarded this year

2007Professor David KlenermanUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for original applications in the life sciences of new biophysical methods based on laser fluorescence spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy.
2007Professor Jeremy NicholsonImperial College LondonAwarded for his contributions to chemical biology, particularly mechanistic insights into disease and toxicity through the development of the field of metabonomics.
2006Professor J W GoodbyUniversity of YorkAwarded for his contributions to the understanding of ferroelectricity in liquid crystals, alignment mechanisms in devices and deducing novel structures, especially in frustrated phases.
2006Professor D LilleyUniversity of DundeeAwarded for his chemical and mechanistic insight in solving problems in chemical biology, particularly his work on RNA folding and resulting catalytic activity.
2005Professor Fraser A ArmstrongUniversity of OxfordAwarded 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.
2005Professor Steven M HowdleUniversity of NottinghamAwarded for his contributions to the development of polymers and bioactive materials using supercritical fluids.
2005Mr Raymond WhiteNational Gallery, LondonAwarded 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.
2004Professor Douglas B KellUniversity of ManchesterAwarded for his contributions to bioanalytical science and the application of molecular and numerical approaches to the study of biological systems.
2004Professor David A LeighUniversity of EdinburghAwarded for his work on the development of synthetic molecular motors and machines.
2003Professor Richard P EvershedUniversity of BristolAwarded for his international recognition as an analytical organic geochemist and the leading exponent of biomolecular archaeology who has revolutionized aspects of archaeological science.
2003Professor David W YoungUniversity of SussexAwarded for his brilliant contributions to the organic chemistry of enzymes of importance in biology and medicine over many years.
2002P J Bruce

2002S Neidle

2001Steve K ChapmanUniversity of EdinburghAwarded for research into the structure, function and mechanism of action of flavocytochromes, particularly flavocytochrome b2 and cytochrome P450.
2001W Jim FeastDurham UniversityAwarded for the development of polymer chemistry to enable processible semiconducting polymers which can be exploited in a wide range of semiconductor device applications.
2000Martyn PoliakoffUniversity of NottinghamAwarded for research into the applications of supercritical fluids in chemistry.
2000Andrew J ThomsonUniversity of East AngliaAwarded for the application of magnetic and optical spectroscopic methods to elucidate the functional roles of transition metals in biology.
1999Professor Chris M DobsonUniversity of OxfordAwarded for research at the interface of chemistry with biology and medicine.
1999Professor Stephen MannUniversity of BristolAwarded for research into the interface between biomineralisation and materials chemistry.
1999Professor Christopher VineyHeriot-Watt UniversityAwarded for research into biomolecular materials, polymers and liquid crystals.
1998C Richard A CatlowThe Royal InstitutionAwarded for synthetic, structural and computational studies including many of industrial importance.
1998Chris T EvansMerlin VenturesAwarded for the development of biotechnology for the production of usefulmaterials and essential services.
1997Ruth DuncanSchool of Pharmacy, LondonAwarded for research and development of Polymeric Anticancer Agent - from Laboratory to Clinic.
1997Peter J SarreUniversity of NottinghamAwarded for contributions to astrophysical chemistry.
1996Peter GregoryZeneca SpecialistsAwarded for contributions to the area of high technology applications of organic colourants.
1995David ParkerDurham UniversityAwarded for contributions in the area of tailored complexes and conjugates for imaging and therapy.
1994James R MaxwellUniversity of BristolAwarded for the use of chemistry in exploring geology.
1993J John HolbrookUniversity of BristolAwarded for the redesign of enzymes for the synthesis of homochiral molecules.
1992Martin R BryceDurham UniversityAwarded for research into the synthesis of organic materials with unusual solid state properties.
1992Dennis ChapmanRoyal Free Hospital, School of MedicineAwarded for research into biomembranes and biomaterials.
1991Richard H FriendUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for research into the electronic properties of organic polymers and related materials.
1991Malcolm F G StevensAston UniversityAwarded for research and development of anticancer drugs - from the laboratory bench to the clinic.
1990John A PyleUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for research into atmospheric chemistry.
1989Laurie J KingUniversity of SurreyAwarded for research into toxicology.
1988Brian J BriscoeImperial College LondonAwardedfor contributions to interface science and engineering, material science and environmental sensors
1987Laurie D HallUniversity of CambridgeAwarded for research and development of NMR as a structural tool for carbohydrate chemistry.
1987John E HarrisNational PowerAwarded for research into corrosion.
1986H Allen O HillUniversity of OxfordAwarded for research into bioinorganic chemistry, electrochemistry and enzyme reactions.
1986Michael JarmanInstitute of Cancer ResearchAwarded for research into drug metabolism.

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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

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David Rees

Astex Pharmaceuticals

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Professor Mark Bradley

Queen Mary University of London, UK

Professor Claire Carmalt

Professor Claire Carmalt

University College London, UK

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Professor Matthew Davies

Swansea University, UK

Karen Faulds

Professor Karen Faulds

University of Strathclyde, UK

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Dr Anabel Lanterna

Dr Anabel Lanterna

University of Nottingham, UK

Andrew Mount

Professor Andrew Mount

University of Edinburgh, UK

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Professor AnnMarie O'Donoghue

Durham University, UK

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Professor Neil Robertson

University of Edinburgh, UK

Dr Helen Ryder

Dr Helen Ryder

University of Manchester, UK