Application guidance for Medals and Prizes
General application guidance
What are the categories of Medals and Prizes?
Our Medal and Prizes comprise the following awards:
- Six Bronze Early Career Medals and Prizes, awarded annually to exceptional physicist in the early stages of their careers
- 17 Silver Subject Medals and Prizes awarded every two years (8 running on even years and 9 running on odd years) for distinguished contributions to physics across a broad range of subject areas
- Six Gold Medals and Prizes awarded every two years (3 running on even years and 3 running on odd years) to physicists with international reputations and have made consistent contributions to physics
- Isaac Newton Medal and Prize that is awarded annually for world-leading contributions to physics by an individual of any nationality
Find more information about the Medals and Prizes, including a breakdown of awards running this year and the terms of reference.
Where do I make a nomination?
Nominations are made via the IOP Awards platform.
Who can make a nomination?
- We accept team nominations, self-nominations and nominations made by a third party for all of our Medals and Prizes. Please note that team nominations count as a single nominee.
- Current members of Council, IOP employees, people under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other awards judging panel, are not eligible to make a nomination. This includes being part of a team.
How do I start a nomination?
- Users must first register and verify their email address. Once verified, login to the portal again.
- Once in the main page, click on 'Start nomination’ button.
- Select the relevant category (Isaac Newton, Gold, Silver, Bronze) from ‘Category’ drop down option. Another drop down menu will appear, select the relevant medal here.
- Enter the nominee’s name and then click the ‘Save and next’ button to be taken to the nomination form.
- You can save your nomination at any time and return to it later.
How do I submit a nomination and what happens next?
- Once all the required fields have been completed, click on the ‘Submit nomination’ button.
- If any required field has been left blank or incorrectly filled in, you will be promoted to go back and complete these.
- Once a nomination is submitted, automatic emails are sent to the nominator to confirm the nomination, (in the case of a third-party nominee to complete the EDI form, the referees to confirm their statements and the validator to validate the nomination.
- If you have forgotten your password, click on the ‘Forgot password’ link on the Awards platform login page. Password reset instructions will be emailed to you.
- Nominators can amend a submitted entry right up until the entry deadline. Login and amend as appropriate, clicking ‘Save + next’ or ‘Save + close’ to update the form.
Nominee eligibility
- Nominees must be working in the UK or Ireland or if based internationally, should have made a substantial contribution to the development tor reputation of physics in the UK or Ireland. The exception to this is the Isaac Newton Medal and Prize.
- Current members of Council, IOP employees, people under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other awards judging panel, are not eligible to self-nominate or be nominated for awards. This includes being part of a team.
- For some medals, there are additional eligibility criteria. These can be found on the individual medal pages.
Information required when making a nomination
- Nominee details
- Eligibility questions
- Short citation (30 words): This section provides a succinct description of the nomination that is accessible to non-specialist audiences.
- Long citation (400 words): This section summarises the nominee’s main achievements that are relevant to the award category and the grounds for recognition. For team nominations, individual team members should be credited in this section.
- CV (1000 words): This section should provide appropriate evidence to complement and substantiate the descriptive narrative in the short and long citation. It should be written in a CV format.
- Details of the independent expert validator: See further details below.
- Automatic nomination roll-over: Indication that if the nomination is unsuccessful, you wish the nomination to be automatically considered in the next year that the medal is running.
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) monitoring form: See further details below. For self-nominators (including a team), you should complete the mandatory EDI form as part of the nomination. Third party nominations will be sent the EDI form separately after the nomination has been made. In the case of team nominations, the EDI form is only mandatory for the lead nominee.
Selection and judging
When making a nomination it is worth thinking about how the winners of the Medals and Prizes are selected. The Awards Committee is responsible for selecting recipients of these awards (except the President’s medal). Find more information on the current committee.
External validator
- Nominators for all nominations will be required to seek the support of an independent expert to validate the information in the nomination.
- Validators for Bronze Early Career Medals and Prizes should be at a level of seniority above the nominee. For all other Medals and Prizes they should hold a position at least at the same seniority level as the nominee.
- Validators will be well regarded in the appropriate field, familiar with the work in the citations and be able to validate the information for accuracy. They may be from within the same organisation or in a different organisation and they shouldn’t have been a collaborator for the past 5 years (defined as someone on a joint funding award or co-author).
- Validators cannot be current members of Council, IOP employees, people under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other awards judging panel.
- Validators cannot be anyone named in the nomination, this includes the nominator.
- Nominators should provide the details of a suitable validator in their form. The IOP will contact them after the nomination has been submitted.
Data protection
The information you submit in this form will be used for the sole purposes of processing your nomination and administering our awards process. Selected information will also be shared with the committee in order to evaluate the nominations and select winners.
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) form
Inclusion and diversity is paramount and we want to celebrate the excellent work of physicists from all backgrounds. Submission of a standard EDI monitoring form is now mandatory. This section of the nomination/application focuses on your equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) information. Your EDI data will only be processed by a limited number of essential staff and will always be presented or published in an aggregated and anonymised format. We will use this data to review, monitor and consider how to best achieve diversity excellence in the IOP Awards.
We recognise that some people may regard this information as private and therefore, there is always an option to ‘prefer not to say’. The responses that you give will assist us greatly in our commitment to EDI and ensuring the IOP Awards reflect the full diversity of the Physics community. Your EDI data will not influence the outcome of the nomination/application.
By completing this form, you consent to the IOP using the information you disclose for the purposes set out above. You can withdraw your consent to the IOP holding or using this information in an identifiable way at any time by contacting us as set out in our Privacy Notice.
The IOP takes your privacy seriously and are committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. For more details about how we handle your personal information, and your rights, please see our Privacy Notice.
Guidance for individual questions
Section 1
About the nomination
Who are you nominating?
- Decide if you are nominating yourself or someone else.
- The IOP welcomes self-nominations for the Medals and Prizes. Nominations submitted by a third-party nominator are also welcome.
- If you are nominating yourself, please complete your application in third person
Are you submitting a nomination as part of an IOP committee? If so, please select the relevant group, nation or branch that this nomination comes with support from.
We strongly welcome nominations from IOP groups, nations and branches. If you are submitting a nomination from an IOP committee, please select the relevant committee that this nomination comes with support from.
Do you want to automatically roll-over your nomination to the next year that the medal is running if unsuccessful?
We strongly recommend that you update the nomination if it is rolled-over to the next year that the medal is running. Please note that Silver Subject and Gold medals run biennially.
Section 2
Eligibility questions
I, as the nominator, confirm that I am not currently a member of Council, IOP employee, under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other awards judging panel.
Nominators and nominee are not eligible if they are currently a member of Council, IOP employee, under contract to the IOP or members of any Awards Committee or judging panel.
I confirm that the nominee is not currently a member of Council, IOP employee, under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other awards judging panel.
Nominators and nominee are not eligible if they are currently a member of Council, IOP employee, under contract to the IOP or members of any Awards Committee or judging panel.
I, as the nominator, confirm that the nominee is either based in the UK or Ireland.
The nominee should be based in the UK or Ireland and if based internationally, should have made a substantial contribution to the development or reputation of physics in the UK or Ireland.
If the nominee is not based in the UK or Ireland, the nominee should describe in one or two sentences how the nominee has made a substantial contribution to the development or reputation of physics in the UK or Ireland. This should complement the information given in the nomination form.
This is not required for the Isaac Newton Medal and Prize as it aims to recognise world leading contributions to physics.
Bronze only: Is the nominee within six years of completing their PhD or within ten years of first beginning work in research and/or application of physics (if they do not have a PhD)?
We define early career as meaning someone who is, as of the closing date for nominations and allowing for career breaks:
- Within six years of PhD graduation date
- Within ten years of first beginning work in the research and/or application of physics, if they do not have a PhD.
If the nominee doesn’t meet this eligibility criteria, they should consider making a nomination for another Medal and Prize.
Note that for the Jocelyn Bell Burnell Medal and Prize, nominees must have completed their first undergraduate (bachelor’s or master’s) degree in physics less than five years ago (not including career breaks).
Section 3
Nominee details (individual and team representative)
Title/Full name/Salutations
In the case of a team, please complete the details for the team representative. The representative for the team is the primary contact for the team and is responsible for the allocation of the Medal and Prize. NB, the Medal and Prize is the same if an individual or team wins an award. This includes one Medal and £1000 prize money and three free memberships (if the award comes with free membership).
Section 4
Citations
Short citation (30 words)
The short citation is what is published alongside a recipient’s name on our website and in publications to indicate the reason they have received an award.
Short citations need to be succinct but, at the same time, informative and accessible to non-specialist audiences.
There should be no more than two sentences in the short citation and it should ideally start with "For their/the". For example:
- For jointly setting up and directing the Isaac Physics programme which has revolutionised physics education for teachers and students in an extraordinary number of UK schools and is now attracting international attention.
- For their outstanding contributions to the fundamental study of condensed matter physics, statistical physics and biophysics using model colloidal systems.
- For their pioneering method of generating high-intensity, ultrashort optical pulses.
- For the development of breakthrough snack products through application of soft matter physics.
- For their contributions to developing the technical service provisions at Caister Academy, by securing funding for pupil activities and setting up a local science technician network, now with nearly sixty members.
For more examples, see previous winners
Long citation (400 words)
This is the section in which the case to award should be made. The long citation is also published on our website with the short citation to indicate the reason for receiving an award.
This section should focus on telling the story of your nominee’s contribution. Evidence to substantiate the main achievements should be provided in the next section ‘CV’.
Citations should be ordered as follows:
- The nominee’s major achievements that are relevant to the award category and level of the medal.
- The grounds for their recognition – what is the significance of the work undertaken? Why are you making the nomination now?
- The impact of the work undertaken – what are the main outcomes of the nominee’s contribution and how has this impacted the field, organisation, physics community or wider society.
Remember, if nominating a team, it is essential that individual team members should be credited in the citation.
Section 5
CV
CV (1000 words)
This section should provide appropriate evidence to complement and substantiate the main achievements outlined in the short and long citation.
You should not repeat information that has already been detailed in the above section.
For team nominations, please include any appropriate evidence from individual team members to complement and substantiate the main achievements of the team. For example, you may include a short summary of individual team members publications and other evidence that supports the overall nomination.
This should be written in a CV format.
Your evidence could include:
- Up to ten most relevant (and recent) publications – the scientific content is most important here
- Details of patents – the scientific content is most important to highlight here
- Publication metrics (e.g., H-index)
- Key collaborations and teamwork relevant to the contribution including interdisciplinary, academia-business, international, government
- Key projects instigated and implemented
- Funding attracted (public or private)
- Business growth metrics (if relevant) such as creation of products and services, new business models, generation of sales, employment for physicists
For physics education, you could provide evidence relating to how the nominee’s contribution has impacted the development of teachers, teaching materials, curriculum projects, the assessment process, research in physics education or diversity in physics education.
For public engagement in physics, you could provide evidence relating to how the nominee’s contribution has impacted research in public engagement, diversity in public engagement, engagement of non-physicists and underrepresented groups, inspiring the next generation of scientists, reach to local, national and international audiences.
For leadership in physics, you could provide evidence relating to how the nominee’s contribution has impacted organisational transformation within a physics context, creating significant impact for under-represented groups in physics, delivering economic and/or societal impact, £multi-million projects, collaborations and teamwork.
Section 6
Validator
Title/First and last name/Salutations/Job title/Organisation/Phone number/Email
Provide the details of a suitable person to validate the nomination. They will be contacted after the application to validate the nomination.
See further guidance in this section on who can be a validator.