RSE Mary Somerville Medal

The RSE Mary Somerville Medal recognises exceptional achievement in research in teamwork and collaborative endeavour within Scottish Higher Education Institute (HEI), between Scottish HEI and other institutions/businesses, and within other institutions, nationally and internationally.

Applications are open from all disciplines/areas of study. The awardees are required to have a Scottish connection but can be based anywhere in the world.

Nominations

The call for nominations for RSE Medals is currently closed.

About Mary Sommerville

Mary Somerville (1780 – 1872) was a mathematician, geographer, and astronomer and translator of the theories of Laplace. An associate of David Brewster, Charles Babbage, and Ada Lovelace, she was regarded as ‘the Queen of Science’ in the nineteenth century, and was the first person to be described in print as a “scientist”.  Along with Caroline Herschel, she became the first women to gain membership to the Royal Astronomical Society.

Medallists

The RSE relaunched its medals in autumn 2022 to include previously unrepresented sectors and to better reflect the important, and often overlooked, input of eminent women to the sciences, arts, and letters in Scotland. The RSE Mary Somerville Medal is a new medal in the previously unrepresented sector of Teamwork and Collaborative Endeavour.

2025

Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science

For their collaborative endeavour to develop trusted relationships between practitioners across the justice system and members of the public through ongoing public engagement and science communication. The team is nationally and internationally renowned for its commitment to creating new interdisciplinary approaches addressing the long-term challenges in the relationship between science and law. Their open and collaborative research has effectively achieved purposeful and useful outcomes that create long-lasting positive impacts.

2024

University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit, University of Dundee

For their research work as the largest academic drug discovery team in the World. It demonstrates that multi-disciplinary, tightly coordinated, and large-scale translational research with real-world impact is both possible and highly impactful: 6 drugs in clinical trials, 6 spin-outs enabled, 9 licences to Pharmaceutical Companies. The team works extensively in neglected infectious disease, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, Chagas’ disease, and tuberculosis, and is a preferred partner for Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in achieving their missions in disease elimination. This impactful work appears in journals such as Nature, Science and PNAS, bringing international reputation to Scotland. 

2023

EAVE II Team

The EAVE II Team has generated scientific analyses and insights that have supported evidence-informed policy and public health response throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprising of public health experts, academics, data scientists and public members across Scotland, the interdisciplinary team developed a real-time surveillance platform to monitor and forecast the evolving pandemic in Scotland.

2023

PeaceRep Team

The PeaceRep Team, represented by Scottish researchers and international collaborators, has conducted research, policy and impact work on peace and conflict studies at both the local and the global scales. The team has played a pivotal role in networking peace and conflict organisations across Scotland and Northern England, and in supporting the establishment of digital peace processes, including in Yemen.