Prize Lectureship

The Foundation provides funds to bring the recipient of its annual Prize Lectureship to Scotland, to deliver lectures and visit staff in universities and research centres throughout Scotland. In the early years, all the Prize Lectures were on biomedical topics, but since 1995 the topic has alternated annually between biomedicine and the humanities.

Professor Steve Shoelson, Head of the Section of Cellular & Molecular Physiology and Professor of Medicine, at Harvard Medical School, has been appointed the Foundation's Prize Lecturer 2008. He will deliver his lectures at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 26 May and in the University of Dundee on 28 May. The lectures are open to all, free of charge, but by ticket only. To obtain tickets, follow this link.

Previous Prize Lectures have been delivered by many distinguished individuals. To view abstracts of the most recent, please click on the appropriate link: Prize Lecture 2007 : Prize Lecture 2006 : Prize Lecture 2005 : Prize Lecture 2004 : Prize Lecture 2003 : Prize Lecture 2002 : There was no Prize Lecture in 2001 : Prize Lecture 2000 : Prize Lecture 1999

2007 : Baroness Onora O'Neill, President of the British Academy
2006 : Professor Ronald McKay, US National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke
2005 : Joan Bakewell, journalist & broadcaster
2004 : Professor Joan Steitz, Yale University
2003 : Professor Richard Holmes, Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University
2002 : Dr Lewis Cantley, Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School & Chief of the Division of Signal Transduction, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston
2001 : Ill health forced military historian, Sir John Keegan, to cancel his Lecture
2000 : Dr Iain Mattaj, Scientific Coordinator of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg
1999 : Sir Roy Strong, historian and writer
1998 : Professor Maynard Olson, of the University of Washington Genome Research Center
1997 : Mr Douglas Cardinal, Canadian architect working in Canada and the USA
1996 : Professor Stanley Prusiner, University of California, San Diego
1995 : Professor George Steiner, Cambridge University
1994 : Professor Donald Metcalf of the Walter & Eliza Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne
1993 : Professor Hans Galjaard of The Erasmus University, Rotterdam
1992 : Professor Walter Gilbert of Harvard University and 1980 joint Nobel Prizewinner in Chemistry
1991 : Professor Harold Varmus of the University of California Medical School and 1989 Nobel Laureate in Medicine