The British Academy Medal

The British Academy Medal was awarded annually to recognise outstanding achievement that had transformed understanding of a particular subject or field of study in any of the disciplines supported by the Academy, in any branch of the humanities and social sciences. The medals were first awarded in 2013.

The British Academy medal is no longer being awarded.


2019 winner

Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes © Kayana Szymczak

Professor Naomi Oreskes was awarded the British Academy Medal in 2019 for her books Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury Press) and The Collapse of Western Civilization (Columbia University Press), both co-authored with Dr Erik M. Conway, and for her commitment to documenting the role of corporations in distorting scientific findings for political ends.

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned geologist, historian and public speaker, she is a leading voice on the role of science in society and the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

"I’m deeply honoured to receive the British Academy Medal, particularly insofar as it may be awarded in any branch of the humanities and social sciences. It is a privilege to be in the company of so many distinguished colleagues."

Professor Naomi Oreskes, July 2019


Previous winners

2018 Timothy Bruce Mitford for two-volume publication East of Asia Minor: Rome's Hidden Frontier (Oxford University Press, 2017).

2018 Dr Miriam Griffin for lifetime achievement in the field of classics and ancient history.

2018 Professor Catherine Whistler for Venice & Drawing 1500-1800: Theory, Practice and Collecting (Yale University Press)

2017 Professor Antony Griffiths FBA for The Print Before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820 (British Museum Press, 2016)

2017 Professor Avi Shlaim FBA, University of Oxford for lifetime achievement.

2017 Professor Dame Marina Warner FBA, Birkbeck, University of London for lifetime achievement.

2016  Professor Tim Blanning FBA for Frederick the Great: King of Prussia (Allen Lane, 2015)

2016  Dr Susan E. Kelly for Charters of Chertsey Abbey (British Academy, 2015) and Charters of Christ Church Canterbury (British Academy, 2013)

2016  Professor David Lowenthal FBA for The Past is a Foreign Country – Revisited (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

2015  Professor Patricia Clavin for Securing The World Economy: The Reinvention of the League of Nations 1920-1946 (Oxford University Press, 2013)

2015  Professor R F Foster FBA for Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923 (Allen Lane, 2014)

2015  Professor Robert Fowler FBA for Early Greek Mythography Volume 2: Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2013)

2014  Professor David Luscombe FBA for The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise (Oxford University Press, 2013)

2014  Professor Geoffrey Parker FBA for Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2013)

2014  Professor Thomas Piketty for Capital in the 21st Century (Harvard University Press, 2013, English edition 2014)

2013  Professor David Abulafia FBA for The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (Penguin Books, 2011)

2013  Dr Noel Malcolm FBA for Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 2012)

2013  Professor Tim Shallice FBA and Dr Richard Cooper for The Organisation of Mind (Oxford University Press, 2011)

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