Leverhulme Medal and Prize

Professor Charles Hulme FBA and Professor Maggie Snowling FBA are jointly awarded the 2024 Leverhulme Medal and Prize for their commitment to understanding children's learning difficulties, particularly dyslexia and developmental language disorder.

Professor Charles Hulme FBA

Charles Hulme is Professor of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Oxford, and founder and CEO of the University of Oxford spinout company, OxEd and Assessment Ltd.

His work has made important contributions to understanding the role of language skills in learning to read and to cognitive theories of developmental disorders of learning. His theoretical work has led to the development of intervention programmes that are proven to improve children’s language and literacy skills.

One such programme, the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme has now been rolled out over the last four years to approximately two thirds of English primary schools with support from the Department for Education.

Charles is proud of the fact that this research has translated into practical benefits for children at scale. He has published widely and is in the top 2 per cent for citations of all researchers in the field of Education.

He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo (2014) and is a member of Academia Europea and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017.

Professor Maggie Snowling FBA

Maggie Snowling is Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Oxford, and Research Fellow, St. John’s College.

She is an expert on children’s learning difficulties, particularly dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD), and is committed to raising awareness of these conditions. She served as President of St. John’s College, Oxford (2012-2022) where she was instrumental in the development of new schemes to widen access to students from under-represented backgrounds.

She is Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of Academia Europea and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. She served on Sir Jim Rose’s Expert Advisory Group on provision for Dyslexia (2009) and most recently was a panel member for the Department of Education’s Reading Framework (2023).

She holds honorary doctorates from Goldsmiths London, UCL, University of Warwick and University of Bristol and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Psychological Society. She was appointed CBE for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia in 2016.

"We are proud to receive the Leverhulme Medal and Prize from the British Academy in recognition of our work exploring the nature and causes of, and treatments for, children’s language and reading difficulties. The research leading to this award has involved many large-scale longitudinal studies and randomised trials and we thank our many talented and enthusiastic collaborators who have made this work possible. Research has been, and continues to be, a great source of pleasure to us. We hope we have contributed in some modest ways to improving children’s educational outcomes and wellbeing. We are very grateful to our peers in the British Academy for recognising our contribution."

- Professor Charles Hulme FBA and Professor Maggie Snowling FBA

The award is made in partnership with the Leverhulme Trust. The first award was in 2002, to mark the British Academy's centenary.