Nominate for the Royal Society Darwin Medal 2026: £2,000 and Prestigious Recognition in Evolutionary Biology

If you study evolution, biodiversity, developmental biology, population or organismal biology, this is one of those career moments that looks small on paper but huge in reputation. The Royal Society Darwin Medal is a historic prize — founded to remember Charles Darwin and first awarded in 1890 to Alfred Russel Wallace — and it still carries weight when it appears on a CV, in grant bios, or in nomination letters. Along with a silver gilt medal, the award includes a modest cash gift of £2,000; the money matters less than the peer recognition and the platform that comes with it.

Nominations are open for the Darwin Medal 2026. The Royal Society now awards the medal annually (it was biennial until 2018) and accepts nominations for individuals and teams. Eligibility focuses on citizens and residents of the UK, Commonwealth, or Republic of Ireland, including those who have lived in those jurisdictions for three or more years. This guide explains who makes a strong nominee, what materials you need, how to prepare a nomination that reviewers will take seriously, and the practical steps for submitting through the Royal Society portal.

A quick caveat on dates: the information from different sources lists both 20 February 2025 and 20 February 2026 as deadlines. The award is for 2026, and the Royal Society content we found states nominations will close on 20 February 2026. Still, confirm the deadline on the official portal before you submit — errors in dates happen and you don’t want to miss it.

At a Glance

What This Opportunity Offers

This is not a large cash prize. The real value lies in recognition from one of the oldest and most respected scientific societies in the world. The Darwin Medal signals that your work has had sustained influence in core areas of biology, often indicating conceptual or empirical advances that change how other scientists think or work. Past recipients include major figures in evolutionary thought; the award places your name in that lineage.

Receiving the medal can accelerate visibility for your lab, department, or collaborative program. Departments use such honors in recruitment, in securing institutional support, and as leverage in national and international grant competitions. For early- and mid-career researchers who are already producing influential work, a nomination can be part of a broader strategy to build a national reputation. For senior scientists, the prize is a public acknowledgement of a body of work.

Teams are now eligible, which broadens the award’s scope to modern, collaborative science. If a multi-institutional group has produced a cohesive, demonstrable contribution — for example, a multi-year comparative project that rewrote aspects of speciation theory, or an international effort that clarified developmental pathways across taxa — the committee will consider that group work alongside individual achievements.

Finally, the Darwin Medal carries a public-facing element: recipients are often invited to give lectures, participate in Royal Society events, and be profiled in Society communications. That means the award can help translate scientific insights beyond specialist journals, into teaching, public outreach, and policy conversations.

Who Should Be Nominated

Think less about arbitrary career stages and more about transformative contributions. The Darwin Medal goes to people (or teams) whose work has changed conceptual understanding or produced widely used empirical methods in evolution and related subfields. That could be:

• A researcher who developed a generative theory that reshaped thinking about speciation or adaptive radiations.
• An experimentalist whose long-term comparative work clarified developmental constraints across multiple organisms.
• A leader of a multi-lab collaborative network that produced definitive datasets illuminating population-level processes.
• A scientist in the Commonwealth or Ireland whose regional work has global relevance, including researchers working in Africa — remember the tag indicating African relevance — where biodiversity studies and conservation biology have immediate real-world stakes.

Examples to guide you: nominate a mid-career scientist who has published several high-impact papers altering the field’s assumptions; nominate a senior researcher whose decades-long empirical series created a new subfield; nominate a cross-disciplinary team that combined genomics, field natural history and theory to resolve a long-standing paradox.

Nominators should also think inclusively. Historically, awards have lagged behind the diversity of the scientific community. If you know a deserving candidate from underrepresented groups, nominating them not only recognizes their work but helps correct systemic visibility gaps. The committee accepts nominations across three cycles, so if your nominee doesn’t win initially, the submission can remain active.

Insider Tips for a Winning Nomination

A good nomination tells a single, compelling story: here is the problem the nominee addressed, here is what they did, and here is why the result matters to the field. Below are tactical tips based on how award committees read dossiers and what has worked in other Royal Society nominations.

1. Open with a crisp significance statement. Begin your nomination letter with a short paragraph (3–5 sentences) that states in plain language the nominee’s major contribution. Imagine explaining it to a departmental head from another discipline. This helps reviewers quickly grasp importance before wading into technical details.

2. Use evidence, not adjectives. Committees distrust generic praise like “world leading.” Replace adjectives with metrics and facts: cite major papers and their citation contexts, list key discoveries, name datasets publicly available, and point to tangible impacts like widely used methods or policy influences.

3. Provide narrative linking publications. Don’t just append a publication list. Describe how specific papers build on each other to form a coherent research program. Show the arc — the question that started the work, the obstacles overcome, and how later studies resolved them.

4. Curate supporting letters with complementary perspectives. Choose referees who can speak to distinct elements: one who addresses conceptual innovation, another who validates technical mastery, and a third who can describe broader impacts, such as influence on conservation practice or training of a generation of students.

5. For team nominations, define roles clearly. Team awards require clarity about who did what. Supply a short statement listing team members, their specific contributions, and why the combined effort is more than the sum of its parts.

6. Tell reviewers why this recognition matters now. Committees often ask whether the work had sustained impact. Explain why the nominee’s contributions are timely and enduring — perhaps a method they introduced is now standard, or their long-term dataset is now informing climate change models.

7. Polish presentation and format. Even brilliant science suffers under sloppy formatting or typos. Use short paragraphs, section headings within the nomination if allowed, and ensure all uploaded documents are legible PDFs with consistent naming conventions.

These tips help turn raw scientific excellence into a nomination that reads like a persuasive case, not a CV dump.

Application Timeline

Work backward from the deadline and build in time for institutional signoffs. Here’s a practical schedule if the deadline is 20 February 2026 — adjust if the official page lists 2025.

• 10–12 weeks before deadline: Identify nominee and secure agreement. Strong candidates should know they’re being nominated and ideally provide key documents or consent for the nomination.
• 8–10 weeks before: Draft the core nomination letter and collect the nominee’s CV, publication list, and any institutional statements. Identify referees and ask them to prepare letters.
• 6–8 weeks before: Collect letters of support. Many referees need several weeks, so ask early and provide a clear deadline at least two weeks before your submission date.
• 4 weeks before: Finalize nomination package. Convert files to PDF, check page limits, and run a proofread. Have a colleague unfamiliar with the nominee read the summary paragraph to test clarity.
• 2 weeks before: Upload to the Royal Society portal and verify all files. Many institutions require internal approvals or compliance checks; leave time for that.
• 48–72 hours before: Submit. Technical glitches happen. Submitting a few days early gives you time to correct upload errors or missing signatures.

If the portal requires institutional endorsement, contact your grants or research office early. They will often insist on internal deadlines days or weeks before the Society’s final date.

Required Materials

The Royal Society portal will define exact material lists; below are items you should prepare in advance and practical tips for each.

• Nomination letter (primary statement): This is your main persuasion piece. Keep it structured: short significance paragraph, evidence of contributions, comparison to peers if relevant, and closing argument for the award’s timing.
• Nominee CV (2–4 pages preferred): Highlight awards, major publications, key datasets, and leadership roles. Focus on elements that speak to impact in evolution and related fields.
• Publication list: Add brief annotations for the most important papers (one sentence each) explaining their significance.
• Supporting letters (3 recommended): Choose writers who can address complementary aspects; ask for concise, evidence-backed letters rather than flowery praise.
• Confirmation of eligibility: If the nominee is a resident rather than a citizen, prepare documentation or a short statement verifying three-plus years of residency in the UK/Commonwealth/ROI.
• Team statement (if nominating a group): A clear description of each member’s role and the integrated nature of the work.
• Supplementary materials: If allowed, include pivotal figures, links to persistent datasets, or a short impact statement describing teaching, outreach, or policy influence.

Prepare all files as clean PDFs, clearly labeled (e.g., “Smith_NominationLetter.pdf”), and confirm file size limits in the portal. Provide referees with a short brief and a suggested deadline; busy senior scientists respond better when given a paragraph-length reminder of the most important points you’d like them to emphasize.

What Makes an Application Stand Out

Committees look for durable influence. A stand-out nomination makes clear that the nominee’s work changed how other scientists ask questions or collect data. Several hallmarks of strong cases:

1. Demonstrable influence: citations matter, but so do adoption of methods, leadership in multi-lab consortia, or datasets that others reuse. Show specific examples where the nominee’s work is now standard practice.

2. Coherent body of work: single papers can be brilliant, but the Darwin Medal tends to reward programs of research that reveal a deeper pattern or principle. Link publications together into a narrative.

3. Breadth and depth balance: nominees who combine deep technical mastery with broad theoretical insight are attractive. If a nominee’s work crosses field boundaries — for instance, bringing developmental biology tools to evolutionary questions — make that explicit.

4. Real-world relevance: when appropriate, show that findings informed conservation decisions, species management, or public understanding of biodiversity. Impact beyond academia strengthens the case.

5. Clear, honest presentation of limits: strong nominations acknowledge legitimate critiques and show how the nominee addressed them. This signals intellectual rigor rather than hubris.

Committees compare candidates directly. Use comparative phrasing sparingly and respectfully: show why the nominee’s work is exceptional relative to peers, using evidence rather than superlatives.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Nomination committees see the same predictable errors. Avoid these pitfalls.

1. Submitting a CV-heavy but narrative-light dossier. A long CV with no story leaves reviewers to connect the dots. Provide the narrative that links accomplishments.

2. Overloading with raw data files or unpublished manuscripts. Unless explicitly requested, keep the package focused on published, peer-reviewed outputs and concise illustrative materials.

3. Late or weak supporting letters. A generic letter from a famous name is less effective than a focused letter from someone who can concretely describe the nominee’s contribution. Ask referees for specific examples and to avoid vague praise.

4. Ignoring residency rules. If the nominee is a resident but not a citizen, include clear evidence of residency length; otherwise the nomination may be invalidated.

5. Submitting at the last minute. Portal errors and institutional approvals create risks. Give buffer time.

6. Failing to tailor the nomination to the Darwin Medal criteria. The Society looks for contributions specifically in evolution, biodiversity, and organismal/population/developmental biology. A brilliant virologist or molecular biologist whose main work sits outside these areas may be less competitive.

Each mistake is fixable with planning. Start early, proofread, and run your draft past colleagues in allied fields.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who can nominate someone for the Darwin Medal? A: Typically, nominations are submitted through the Royal Society portal by established researchers or institutional representatives. Check the portal for any specific nominator eligibility rules, and confirm whether the nominee must consent.

Q: Can I nominate a team rather than an individual? A: Yes. Teams are eligible. If nominating a group, supply a clear statement of each member’s role and why the collaborative output justifies team recognition.

Q: What is the residency requirement? A: Nominees should be citizens of the UK, Commonwealth, or Republic of Ireland, or have been residents in those places for three or more years. If the nominee is a resident, provide documentation or a succinct institutional statement confirming the residency period.

Q: Does the award require the nominee to be based in the UK? A: No — being a citizen or meeting the three-year residency rule is the relevant criterion. International collaborators can be part of team work, but confirm eligibility details with the Royal Society.

Q: How long will a nomination remain active? A: Nominations are considered across three nomination cycles, which gives nominees multiple opportunities without re-submitting from scratch in many cases. Confirm exact mechanics on the Society’s nominations guidance.

Q: Can I re-nominate someone who was previously unsuccessful? A: Yes. Given that nominations may be considered across cycles, you can update a nomination with new evidence or re-nominate after consulting the portal rules.

Q: Will the Society provide feedback if my nominee is not selected? A: The Royal Society does not always provide individual feedback for medal nominations. If feedback is available, use it to strengthen future submissions.

Q: Is the £2,000 taxable? A: Tax rules vary by country and institutional policy. If awarded, check with your finance office or the Royal Society for guidance on payments and tax obligations.

How to Apply

Ready to prepare a nomination? Follow these practical steps:

1. Confirm the deadline on the Royal Society portal. The information we reviewed lists 20 February 2026 as the closing date for 2026 nominations, but some sources show 20 February 2025. Verify the date at the official link below.

2. Register as a nominator on the Royal Society nominations portal if you haven’t already. Institutional access or accounts may be required.

3. Secure the nominee’s consent and assemble core materials: a concise nomination letter, annotated publication list, CV, supporting letters, and residency documentation if needed.

4. Upload all files as PDFs to the portal and complete any required online forms. Label files clearly and respect any page limits.

5. Submit at least 48–72 hours before the deadline to avoid last-minute issues. Save confirmation emails and copies of everything you upload.

Ready to apply? Visit the Royal Society nominations portal and the Darwin Medal page for full requirements and the official submission form: https://portal.royalsociety.org/my-home/nominations-nominator/

If you have questions about eligibility or the online system, contact the Royal Society nominations support through the portal. Good nominations are a combination of stellar science and careful storytelling — start early and give your nominee the case they deserve.