Silver medal winners have all made distinguished contributions to the development or reputation of physics in the UK or Ireland across 17 subject areas.
- Nominees 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.
- Nominees, nominators and external validators do not need to be members of the IOP.
- Nominees, nominators and external validators cannot be current members of Council, IOP employees, people under contract to the IOP, the Awards Committee, or members of any other IOP Awards judging panel.
Nominations for the 2024 Medals and Prizes are now closed. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about the awards or your submission. The 2025 IOP Medals and Prizes will call for nominations towards the end of 2024.
The following information is provided for reference:
- You can nominate yourself or someone else for this Award. All nominations will be judged in the same way regardless of the method of nomination.
- If you are nominating someone else, you should inform the nominee as you will need to provide their contact details and they will be contacted following submission to complete an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) monitoring form.
Nominators must submit:
- Details of the nominee
- Short citation (up to 30 words)
- Long citation (up to 400 words)
- A CV (up to 1,000 words)
- Contact details for one external validator to validate the nomination. For Gold and Silver Medals and Prizes they must, at the minimum, be of the same seniority level as the nominee. For Bronze Medals and Prizes, the validator must be at a higher seniority level than the nominee.
You can find more information on the nominations process in our FAQs and application guidance.
Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about the awards or your submission.
We no longer require references to be submitted for Medals and Prizes. Nominators will now be required to seek the support of an independent expert to validate the information in the nomination.
You can find out more information on external validators in our FAQs and application guidance.
John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to theoretical (including mathematical and computational) physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh
Lord Rayleigh was an English physicist who made fundamental discoveries in acoustics and optics – in particular, what is now known as Rayleigh scattering – the elastic scattering of light by particles smaller than its wavelength, which is the reason the sky appears blue – and Rayleigh waves, which are acoustics waves travelling along the surface of a solid.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh Medal and Prize recipients
Sam Edwards Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions in soft matter physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Sam Edwards
Born in Wales, Edwards’ work in condensed matter physics started in 1958 with a paper showing that statistical properties of disordered systems (glasses, gels etc.) could be described by the Feynman diagram and path-integral methods invented in quantum field theory. During the following 35 years, Edwards worked in the theoretical study of complex materials, such as polymers, gels, colloids and similar systems.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
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Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to physics applied to the life sciences including biological physics, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin was an English X-ray crystallographer whose work was critical to the understanding of the molecular structure of graphite, coal, viruses and DNA – the latter being recognised through Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins’s receipt of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize recipients
Nevill Mott Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to condensed matter or materials physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Nevill Mott
Sir Nevill Mott was a British physicist who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics with Philip W Anderson and JH Van Vleck for work on the electronic properties of disordered systems, particularly amorphous semiconductors. He served as president of the Physical Society over 1956-58.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Nevill Mott Medal and Prize recipients
David Tabor Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to surface or nanoscale physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About David Tabor
David Tabor was an experimental physicist who was responsible for founding the field of tribology – the study of friction between surfaces. As well as establishing the discipline he pioneered an interdisciplinary approach, working to involve chemists, metallurgists and engineers.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about David Tabor Medal and Prize recipients
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to plasma, solar or space physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-American astrophysicist who, in the course of her PhD studies on stellar spectra, discovered that stars are composed overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium, in contrast to the prevailing view that the chemical makeup of the stars was much the same as that on Earth.
She thereby established that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. After her doctorate, Payne-Gaposchkin carried out observations of more than three million variable stars, with her data being used to determine stellar evolution.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize recipients
Edward Appleton Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to environmental, Earth or atmospheric physics, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Edward Appleton
Sir Edward Appleton was an English physicist and radio pioneer who was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics for work that proved the existence of the Earth’s ionosphere. His observation that the strength of a radio signal was constant during the day but varied at night had led him to believe that two signals were being received – one along the ground and another reflected off the atmosphere, and he confirmed this in experiments involving measuring variation in radio waves at sunset.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Edward Appleton Medal and Prize recipients
Thomas Young Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to optics, including work related to physics outside the visible region, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Thomas Young
Thomas Young was an English polymath noted for having established the wave theory of light via his famous double-slit experiment, and for what is now known as Young’s modulus, which relates the stress in a body to its associated strain.
He also made contributions to the theory of colour vision, first coming up with the hypothesis that our perception of colour depends on three kinds of receptors sensitive to different wavelengths of light, and to the understanding of surface tension.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Thomas Young Medal and Prize recipients
Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to atomic or molecular physics, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Joseph Thomson
Sir Joseph Thomson was best known for his discovery of the electron: his studies of what were then known as cathode rays showed that those rays must be made up of negatively charged particles much smaller than an atom and with a large charge: mass ratio. Thomson also pioneered mass spectroscopy and found the first evidence for the existence of isotopes of a stable element. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 for his investigations of the conduction of electricity by gases.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize recipients
Ernest Rutherford Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to nuclear physics, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was a New-Zealand-born British physicist who is generally considered to be the father of nuclear physics. He came up with the concept of radioactive half-life, showed that radioactivity involves chemical elements transmuting into other elements, and was the first to distinguish between alpha and beta radiation.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Ernest Rutherford Medal and Prize recipients
James Chadwick Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to particle physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About James Chadwick
Sir James Chadwick was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron. Chadwick studied under Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester and then under 'Hans' Geiger in Berlin.
He authored the final draft of the report that persuaded the US government to begin serious efforts to develop an atomic weapon, and subsequently worked on the Manhattan Project. He was knighted in 1945.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about James Chadwick Medal and Prize recipients
Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to astrophysics, gravitational physics or cosmology, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle was an English astrophysicist who developed the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, which describes how elements heavier than helium are produced by nuclear reactions within stars. Hoyle directed the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Astronomy for six years.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize recipients
James Joule Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to applied physics, involving the application of the methods and principles of fundamental physics to solve technological problems, awarded in even-numbered years.
About James Joule
James Joule was an English physicist and mathematician who uncovered the relationships between heat and mechanical work and, later, electricity. Joule’s work disproved the then-popular caloric theory of heat, and led to the principle of conservation of energy and to modern thermodynamics. The unit of energy, the joule, is named after him.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about James Joule Medal and Prize recipients
Dennis Gabor Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to the application of physics in an industrial or commercial context or in large and SME businesses, awarded in even-numbered years.
About Dennis Gabor
Dennis Gabor was a Hungarian-British physicist and the inventor of holography, for which he was awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1933 Gabor fled Nazi Germany, where he had been researching electron optics at the Technical University of Berlin, and came to the UK, where he began work at the engineering firm British Thomson-Houston.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Dennis Gabor Medal and Prize recipients
Marie Curie-Sklodowska Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to physics education, awarded in even-numbered years.
Previous medal winners have had significant impact on one or more of the following:
- the development of teachers
- teaching materials, curriculum projects
- the assessment process
- research in physics education
- diversity in physics education
About Marie Curie-Sklodowska
Marie Curie-Sklodowska’s achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity. Curie-Sklodowska discovered two new chemical elements – radium and polonium. She carried out the first research into the treatment of tumours with radiation, and she was the founder of the Curie Institutes, which are important medical research centres. She is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out more about Marie Curie-Sklodowska Medal and Prize recipients
Lise Meitner Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to public engagement within physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. In 1944, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to her long-time collaborator Otto Hahn for work on nuclear fission.
In the 1990s, the records of the committee that decided on that prize were opened. Several scientists and journalists have called her exclusion “unjust”, and Meitner has received a flurry of posthumous honours, including the naming of chemical element 109 as meitnerium in 1997.
This medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Lise Meitner Medal and Prize recipients
Peter Mansfield Medal and Prize
For distinguished contributions to medical physics, awarded in odd-numbered years.
About Peter Mansfield
Sir Peter Mansfield was a British physicist who made ground-breaking discoveries while Professor at the University of Nottingham. His research led to the development of the MRI medical scanner used in hospitals and medical centres all over the world.
The medal comes with a prize of £1,000 and a certificate.
Find out about Peter Mansfield Medal and Prize recipients
