Gold Medal (RGS)

The Gold Medal are the most prestigious of the awards presented by the Royal Geographical Society. The Gold Medal is not one award but consists of two separate awards; the Founder's Medal 1830 and the Patron's Medal 1838. The award is given for "the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery", and requires Royal approval before an award can be made. The awards originated as an annual gift of fifty guineas from King William IV, first made in 1831, "to constitute a premium for the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery". The Royal Geographical Society decided in 1839 to change this monetary award into two gold medals: Founder’s Medal and the Patron’s. The award has been given to notable geographers including David Livingstone (1855), Nain Singh Rawat (1877), Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1878), Alfred Russel Wallace (1892) and William Woodville Rockhill (1893), to more recent winners including Professor William Morris Davis (1919), Sir Halford John Mackinder (1945), Professor Richard Chorley (1987) and Professor David Harvey (1995).

Past recipients

Date	Founder's Medal	Contribution	Patron's Medal	Contribution
2007	Professor Roger Barry	international leadership of research on climate and climate change	Professor Paul Curran	international development of geographical science through remote sensing and Earth observation
2006	Professor Derek Gregory	international leadership of research in human geography and social theory	Professor Jack Ives	role internationally in establishing the global importance of mountain regions
2005	Professor Sir Nicholas Shackleton	research on Quaternary palaeoclimatology	Professor Jean Malaurie	lifelong study of the Arctic and its peoples
2004	Professor Leszek Starkel	advancing international understanding of palaeohydrology and geomorphology	Sydney Possuelo	contributions to Brazilian people’s rights and explorations in Amazonia
2003	Professor Michael Frank Goodchild	contributions to geographical information science	Harish Kapadia	contributions to geographical discovery and mountaineering in the Himalayas
2002	Bruno Messerli	mountain research and the public awareness of mountain issues	Dr David Keeble	advancing knowledge in economic and industrial geography
2001	Professor William Graf	research on dryland river processes, and the interactions of science and public policy	Reinhold Messner	mountaineering and mountain regions
2000	Professor Brian Robson	urban geography and geographical perspectives to urban policy	Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO	promoting the understanding of global environmental issues in governmental and wider public arena
1999	Professor Mike Kirkby	development of processed-based and modelling approaches in geomorphology	Doug Scott, CBE	mountaineering and the knowledge of mountain regions

External links

• List of Past Gold Medal Winners