Award by the Royal Society of London
Award
Fellowship of the Royal Society Awarded for "Contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge"[ 1] Sponsored by Royal Society Date 1663; 361 years ago (1663 ) Location London Country United Kingdom Total no. Fellows Approximately 8,000[ 2] (1,743 living Fellows)
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ".[ 1]
Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672),[ 2] Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816),[ 2] Michael Faraday (1824),[ 2] Charles Darwin (1839),[ 2] Ernest Rutherford (1903),[ 3] Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918),[ 4] Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920),[ 5] Albert Einstein (1921),[ 6] Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944),[ 7] Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945),[ 8] Dorothy Hodgkin (1947),[ 9] Alan Turing (1951),[ 10] Lise Meitner (1955),[ 11] Satyendra Nath Bose (1958),[ 12] and Francis Crick (1959).[ 13] [ 14] More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006),[ 15] Andre Geim (2007),[ 16] James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018),[ 17] Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total,[ 2] including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018[update] , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates.[ 18]
Elected in 1672, Isaac Newton was one of the earliest fellows of the Royal Society.
Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar "[ 19] with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year.[ 20] [ 21] [ 22] [ 23] [ 24] [ 25] [ 26]
^ a b Cite error: The named reference elections
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^ a b c d e f "Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660–2015" . London: Royal Society . 2015. Archived from the original on 15 October 2015.
^ Eve, A. S.; Chadwick, J. (1938). "Lord Rutherford 1871–1937". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society . 2 (6): 394–423. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1938.0025 .
^ Neville, Eric Harold (1921). "The Late Srinivasa Ramanujan" . Nature . 106 (2673): 661–662. Bibcode :1921Natur.106..661N . doi :10.1038/106661b0 . S2CID 4185656 . Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 30 June 2019 .
^ "Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, 1858 - 1937" . Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society . 3 (8): 3–12. 1940. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1940.0001 . ISSN 1479-571X .
^ Whittaker, E. (1955). "Albert Einstein. 1879–1955". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 1 : 37–67. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1955.0005 . JSTOR 769242 . S2CID 619823 .
^ Tayler, Roger J. (1996). "Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995" . Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 42 : 80–94. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1996.0006 . S2CID 58736242 .
^ "Prasantha Chandra Mahalanobis, 1893-1972" . Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 19 : 455–492. 1973. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1973.0017 . ISSN 0080-4606 .
^ Dodson, Guy (2002). "Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 48 : 179–219. doi :10.1098/rsbm.2002.0011 . PMID 13678070 . S2CID 61764553 .
^ Newman, M. H. A. (1955). "Alan Mathison Turing. 1912–1954" . Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 1 : 253–263. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1955.0019 . JSTOR 769256 .
^ "The Royal Society – Fellow Details" . The Royal Society . 13 September 2020. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2020 .
^ Mehra, Jagdish (1975). "Satyendra Nath Bose, 1 January 1894 - 4 February 1974" . Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 21 : 116–154. doi :10.1098/rsbm.1975.0002 . ISSN 0080-4606 .
^ Bretscher, Mark S. ; Mitchison, Graeme (2017). "Francis Harry Compton Crick OM. 8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004" . Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 63 : rsbm20170010. doi :10.1098/rsbm.2017.0010 . ISSN 0080-4606 .
^ Rich, Alexander ; Stevens, Charles F. (2004). "Obituary: Francis Crick (1916–2004)" . Nature . 430 (7002): 845–847. Bibcode :2004Natur.430..845R . doi :10.1038/430845a . PMID 15318208 .
^ "Atta-Ur Rahman" . Royal Society . Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 23 August 2018 .
^ "Andre Geim" . Royal Society . Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 23 August 2018 .
^ "Elon Musk elected as Fellow of the Royal Society" . Sky News . 9 May 2018. Archived from the original on 4 January 2021. Retrieved 22 April 2023 .
^ "Fellows" . The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2023 .
^ Blackstock, Colin (2004). "Fellows keep Susan Greenfield off Royal Society list" . The Guardian . London. Archived from the original on 13 September 2015.
^ "Eminent cancer researchers elected to Royal Society Fellowship" . London: Institute of Cancer Research . 2016. Archived from the original on 25 May 2016.
^ "Royal Society Fellowship for Crick scientist" . London: Francis Crick Institute . 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 25 May 2016.
^ "Manchester scientists elected as Fellows of Royal Society" . Manchester: University of Manchester . 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 7 May 2016.
^ "Royal Society Fellows" . London: Imperial College London . 2016. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016.
^ "Three University of Aberdeen researchers elected to Royal Society" . Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen . 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 25 May 2016.
^ "The Royal Society announces election of new Fellows 2015" . Cambridge: University of Cambridge . 29 April 2016. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016.
^ "Seven Oxford academics elected Fellows of the Royal Society" . Oxford: University of Oxford . 2016. Archived from the original on 30 April 2016.