The Linnean Medal

Awarded to scientists for their contribution to the natural sciences.

Awarded annually by Council alternately to a scientist (in any field), as an expression of the Society's esteem and appreciation for service to science. Any biologist, irrespective of nationality, who is not at the time a member of Council, is eligible to receive the Medal, which is presented at the annual Anniversary Meeting by the President, who specifies the grounds on which the medal has been awarded.

The next round of nominations for this award will open in May 2025.

• Open to any scientist, of any nationality or age, in any field of academic research relating to the natural sciences (e.g., taxonomy, systematics, phylogenetics, evolution, ecology)
• For their significant contribution to the science of natural history (and to the wider natural sciences community)
• Nominee cannot, at the time of nomination, be a member of Council
• Nominee does not need to be a Fellow of the Society
• We do not accept self-nominations

Professor David Macdonald CBE

‘The questions that preoccupied Linnaeus, nowadays at the intersection of evolutionary theory and naturalistic insight, lit a fire in the minds of scientists whose flames the Linnean Society has fanned for 237 years. I am deeply humbled to be honoured by the most prestigious accolade of this most venerable of natural history societies, and to feel part of this inspiring, and still vibrant, tradition.’

A leader in Conservation Science, Professor David Macdonald CBE is a British Zoologist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The University of Oxford’s first Professor of Wildlife Conservation, he is also the Founding Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit there.

David’s early work on foxes led him to establish the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis as a fundamental understanding of animal societies as emergent properties of their ecological circumstances. David also led a 40-year interdisciplinary field study of European badgers in Wytham Wood. From this, he developed the Perturbation Hypothesis, informing issues from trophy hunting to Human Wildlife Conflict, and UK policy on bovine tuberculosis. Nowadays his global research on felids, from lions to clouded leopards, focuses on landscape-scale decision-support at the interface of conservation and development.