Medals and Prizes

The Royal Physiographic Society of Lund has instituted funds and received endowments reserved for medals and prizes for eminent scientific work.

Medals

At its annual formal event on December 2nd 1910, the Society instituted a Memorial Medal Fund. It was decided that a Memorial Medal in Gold should be awarded to a Swedish man or woman for exceptional scientific work. The discipline for the award would shift between Biology, Mathematics/Physics and Medicine and be awarded every third year. The medal was awarded for the first time in 1915. The Fund also allows the award of a Memorial Medal in Silver, a medal awarded to a Swedish or foreign man or woman for exceptional contributions to the life and development of the Society. This medal is not awarded regularly and was first awarded in 1930.

In 1912, Max Engeström donated funds to create a medal to be awarded at least every fifth year (nowadays every third year) to a person for outstanding work within the applied sciences that pertains to Scanian agriculture and its subsidiary industries. This medal has been named the Engeström Medal and it was first awarded in 1917.

In 1928, Nils Rosén donated funds to create a Linnaeus Medal in Gold, to be awarded to a Swede for distinguished contributions to Botany. The medal can also be awarded for eminent services to the field of Horticulture. The medal is awarded every third year, and was first awarded in 1939. The medal is referred to as Rosén’s Linnaeus Medal in Gold.

In 1954, at the recommendation of Fellows Nils Emmelin, Dora Jacobsohn and Georg Kahlson, the Society instituted a medal in silver, the Thunberg Medal, to honour the memory of the physiologist Torsten Thunberg. The medal is conferred upon a Nordic researcher who has made outstanding contributions to the fields of Physiology, Physiological Chemistry or related research fields. Emmelin, Jacobsohn and Kahlson donated 30 medals to be awarded every second year, with the first being awarded in 1954. 

Prizes

In 1918, Consul Wilhelm Westup donated funds to be used for a prize covering the same fields as the Engeström Medal, i.e. a prize for work promoting scientific applications in Scanian agriculture and its subsidiary industries. The Westrup Prize is awarded every fifth year, and was awarded for the first time in 1923. In 2018 the prize was worth 1 million kronor.

The same Rosén that donated funds for the Linneaus Medal also bequeathed funds for two further prizes, one in Botany and one in Zoology. They are awarded every third year to one or two well deserving Swedes. Rosén’s Prizes in Botany and Zoology were first awarded in 1935. In 2013 the prizes were worth 560,000 kronor in each of the two fields of Botany and Zoology.

In 1912, Botany Professor Bengt Jönsson’s sister Johanna donated funds whose returns were used to create the Bengt Jönsson Prize. This prize, for a PhD student at Lund University who has been highly successful in their studies of Botany, is awarded every fifth year (and was first awarded in 1940). The prize has since developed into an award for the best PhD thesis during the previous five-year period. In 2017 the prize was 130,000 kr.

An endowment to honour Professor Assar Hadding was reformed into a prize to be awarded every third year to a Swede who has authored an outstanding scientific thesis in the field of Geology. Assar Hadding’s Prize was awarded for the first time in 1959, and in 2019 was worth 350,000 kr.

In 1960, another sister, Elisabeth Gyllenborg, bequeathed money to a fund to honour her brother Fabian. Fabian Gyllenberg’s Prize is awarded every third year to a young chemistry student at the Department of Chemistry in Lund who has successfully promoted scientific teaching and research at this institution. In practice, this prize has been awarded for the best thesis produced during the previous three years. The first prize was awarded in 1972, and in 2018 the prize was 80,000 kr. 

Rolf Dahlgren’s Prize in Botany is awarded every third year to an active researcher of any nationality for outstanding contributions to our understanding of the systematics and evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms). The prize was awared for the first time in 1990, and in 2020 the prize was worth 200,000 kr.

The Sven Berggren Prize, which is associated with the Sven Berggren Lecture delivered at the Society’s October meeting, is awarded to an eminent person who has distinguished themselves in the service of science or society, in areas that lie within the Society’s sphere of interest. This is a yearly prize that was first awarded in 1995.

The Sten von Friesen Prize derives from the 1992 testament of Sten von Friesen. The prize is awarded to a young physicist. For every three awards, the prize is given to an experimental physicist twice, and to a theoretical physicist once. The prize is awarded every third year, and was awared for the first time in 2001. In 2018 the prize was worth 60,000 kr.

Ingrid and Sten Ahrlands Prize is awarded to a young Nordic researcher who has made outstanding contributions to the field of experimental Chemistry. The prize is awarded every fifth year, and was awarded for the first time in 2009 (when it was then worth 50,000 kr). In 2019 the prixe was worth 90,000 kr.

Eva and Lars Gårdings Prize is intended for the promotion of research and for rewarding scientific excellence in the fields of Mathematics and Linguistics. It is awarded for Mathematics during odd years and for Linguistics during even years. The prize was first awarded in 2003. In 2020 the prize was worth 240,000 kr.

The Göran Lind Prize is awarded to a young researcher at the Department fpr Electrical and Infomation Technology at Lund University. The prize was first awarded in 2017. In 2020 the prize was worth 40,000 kr.

The Royal Physiographic Society annually awards a major teaching prize to teachers in science and mathematics at upper secondary level in Skåne. The award is given to teachers who take an unusually great responsibility for their teaching subject and teach in a way that inspires and engages both students and colleagues. Each year, the prize is awarded to a teacher and their teaching team in two subjects in a rolling schedule. The prize will be awarded for the first time in 2023 in mathematics and physics. This year a prize of SEK 50,000 will be awarded to the individual teachers and SEK 10,000 to their respective teaching teams.

The Royal Physiographic Society annually awards a major prize to technical/administrative staff
The prize is annually awarded to technical/administrative staff to a person that lagely has contributed to research at Lund University or the Swedish UNiversity of Agricultural Sciences, (SLU, Alnarp). Examles of categories who can recieve the prize are: Research engeneers, bimedilac analytics, research nurses, where also other categories wihitin the group tecnical/administrative staff can be nominated. The prize can be awarded whithin all three areas: Science, medicine, an tecnique. The prize sum for each prize is at the moment SEK 35 000, where of SEK 25 000 is a personal prize and SEK 10.000 for personal education (field trip, conference), to be administrated by the employer.

The Society’s Medal for Merit was instituted on December 2nd 1906. It bears the image of the Society’s founder Anders Jahan Retzius