The Leverhulme Medal is awarded by the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 every three years "for an outstandingly significant contribution in the field of pure or applied chemistry or engineering, including chemical engineering". It was created in 1960 after a donation by the Leverhulme Trust

Leverhulme Trust

The Leverhulme Trust was established in 1925 under the will of the First Viscount Leverhulme, William Hesketh Lever, with the instruction that its resources should be used to support "scholarships for the purposes of research and education."...

 to mark the 300-year anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Society, and is accompanied by a £

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

2000 gift. The most recent winner was John Knott

John Knott

John Knott OBE FRS FREng is a British scientist who teaches at the University of Birmingham. He was awarded the Leverhulme Medal of the Royal Society in 2005.-References:...

 in 2008, who was awarded the medal "for the discovery and characterisation of novel materials exhibiting potential for catalysis and storage". Since its creation it has been awarded 17 times, and unlike other Royal Society medals such as the Royal Medal

Royal Medal

The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal, is a silver-gilt medal awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important contributions to the advancement of natural knowledge" and one for "distinguished contributions in the applied sciences" made within the Commonwealth of...

, it has never been awarded to a woman or to the same person multiple times. Citizens of the United Kingdom have won the medal 16 out of the 17 times; the only foreign recipient was Man Mohan Sharma

Man Mohan Sharma

Man Mohan Sharma is an eminent Indian chemical engineering scientist. He was educated at Jodhpur, Mumbai and Cambridge. At the age of 27 years, he was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering in the University of Mumbai, Department of Chemical Technology...

, an Indian citizen who was awarded the medal in 1996 "for his work on the dynamics of multi-phase chemical reactions in industrial processes". Two of the Leverhulme Medal winners also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

: Archer John Porter Martin

Archer John Porter Martin

Archer John Porter Martin, FRS was a British chemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Richard Synge....

, who won the medal in 1963 for "his distinguished and fundamental discoveries in chromatography and its application" and the Nobel Prize in 1952, and Cyril Norman Hinshelwood

Cyril Norman Hinshelwood

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood OM PRS was an English physical chemist.Born in London, his parents were Norman Macmillan Hinshelwood, a chartered accountant, and Ethe Frances née Smith. He was educated first in Canada, returning in 1905 on the death of his father to a small flat in Chelsea where he...

, who won the medal in 1960 for "his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry" and the Nobel Prize in 1956.

List of recipients

Year	Name	Rationale	Notes
1960		"for his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry"
1963		"for his distinguished and fundamental discoveries in chromatography and its application"
1966		"for his distinguished contributions to the design of motor cars, particularly the Morris Minor and Austin and Morris Mini"
1969		"for his many distinguished contributions to nuclear reactor research and development and for outstanding leadership in all branches of his field"	—
1972		"for his many distinguished work in development of particle accelerators, and plasma physics"	—
1975		"for his distinguished contributions to the application of chemical science to industry"	—
1978		"for his outstanding work as consulting engineer both nationally and internationally in many branches of chemical engineering, particularly control of pollution"
1981		"for his work on superchargers of the Merlin engines, the development of the first Rolls Royce jet engines, then Bristol engines including that for the jump jet and, later, the final development of the Rolls Royce RB211 engine"	—
1984		"for his distinguished contributions to chemical engineering, in particular the use of fluidised beds."	—
1987		"for his many contributions to the technologically important field of liquid crystals"
1990		"for introducing new techniques in high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, particularly the development of two-dimensional Fourier transform methods"
1993		"distinguished for his contributions to thermodynamics, in particular to an understanding of the physical chemistry of gas-liquid interfaces and surfaces"
1996		"for his work on the dynamics of multi-phase chemical reactions in industrial processes"
1999		"in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the field of organic chemistry including his work on natural products synthesis and biosynthesis, particularly for his research in the b-lactam antibiotic field, initially contributing to biosynthetic problems which paved the way to the study of the enzymology of the process and eventually culminating in the determination of the crystal structure of isopenicillin N synthase"
2002		"for his pioneering contributions to the development of the modern methodology of quantum chemistry, which has had an enormous impact on chemistry and molecular biology"
2005		"for his distinguished contributions to the quantitative scientific understanding of fracture processes in metals and alloys and its engineering applications"
2008		"for the discovery and characterisation of novel materials exhibiting potential for catalysis and storage"
2010		"for his outstanding contributions in the fields of Green Chemistry and supercritical fluids by the application of chemistry to advance chemical engineering processes"