John Scott Medal

John Scott Award, created in 1816 as the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium, is presented to men and women whose inventions improved the "comfort, welfare, and happiness of human kind" in a significant way.^[1] Since 1919 the Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia^[2] provide this award, recommended by an advisory committee.^[3][4]

John Scott Award
Country	USA
Presented by	The Franklin Institute and the City Council of Philadelphia
First award	1816
Website	https://thejohnscottaward.github.io/jsc/index.html

In 1822 the first awards were given to thirteen people by the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture^[5] entrusted by the "Corporation of the city of Philadelphia".^[6]

The druggist John Scott of Edinburgh organized a $4,000 fund which, after his death in 1815 was administered by a merchant until the first award, a copper medal and "an amount not to exceed twenty dollars", was given in 1822. (At the time, $20 could buy one ox or a 12-volume encyclopedia.) Several hundred recipients have since been selected by the City Council of Philadelphia, which decides from the annual list of nominees made by the Franklin Institute.

Notable recipients

Most awards have been given for inventions in science and medicine. Notable recipients include:

• Luis W. Alvarez
• Frederick G. Banting
• John Bardeen
• James Black
• William T. Bovie
• Ralph L. Brinster
• Marie Curie
• William Duane
• Thomas Edison
• Alexander Fleming
• Peter Koch
• Irving Langmuir
• Edwin Land
• Christian J. Lambertsen
• Luther D. Lovekin
• Benoît Mandelbrot
• Guglielmo Marconi
• Edgar Sharp McFadden^[7]
• Humberto Fernandez Moran
• Kary B. Mullis
• Jonas Salk
• Glenn Seaborg
• Richard E. Smalley
• Nikola Tesla
• Wright brothers
• Robert Burns Woodward
• David Gestetner

Recent winners

Year	Winner	Area of Innovation
2023[8]	Michael E. Mann	scientific understanding of historic climate change
	Robert H. Socolow	pioneering new concepts and creating new fields in energy and the environment
2022 [citation needed]	Gary Beauchamp	translational research on taste, smell, and flavor
	Nancy Bonini	use of Drosophila to gain insight into degenerative diseases of the brain
	Barry Arkles	Silicon-based science for medical devices and polymeric materials
2021 [citation needed]	Katalin Kariko	stable mRNA enabling gene-induced immune response
	Drew Weissman	mRNA approach to enable-induced response within the human body
2020 [citation needed]	Jean Bennett	Gene therapies for curing retinal degeneration
	William DeGrado	development of antimicrobial peptides
	Michael Klein	algorithms for computational simulation of biological systems
2019	Emily A. Carter	reverse combustion
	Charles L. Kane	topological insulators
	Eugene Mele	topological insulators
2018	James West	foil electret microphone
	Bjarne Stroustrup	c++ computer programming language
2017	Ruzena Bajcsy	robotics and engineering science
	Warren Ewens	population genetics research
	Masatoshi Nei	evolutionary theory
2016	Emmanuelle Charpentier	CRISPR-Cas genome editing
	Jennifer Doudna
	Feng Zhang
	Carl H. June	cancer immunology
2015	Madeleine M. Joullié	synthetic chemistry
	John P. Perdew	density functional theory
2014	Susan Band Horwitz	cancer therapeutics
	Leonard Hayflick	discovery of cellular senescence and innovations in microscopy
	Paul S. Moorhead
2013[9]	P. Leslie Dutton	redox reactions in biochemistry
	N. Scott Adzick	fetal surgery
	Robert L. Brent	environmental causes of birth defects
2012	Paul J. Steinhardt	quasicrystals
	John Q. Trojanowski	neurodegenerative diseases
	Virginia Man-Yee Lee
2011	David E. Kuhl	PET scans
	Jenny Pickworth Glusker	crystallography
2010	Christian J. Lambertsen	underwater diving equipment
	William A. Eaton	protein aggregation and folding

See also

• Carl Roman Abt, A past recipient (1889)

References

1. "Sundry Trusts". Board of Directors of City Trusts of Philadelphia. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2011. "...the John Scott Medal Fund, established in 1816...".
2. "Board of Directors of City Trusts". Retrieved March 27, 2011.
3. Garfield, E. "The John Scott Award". John Scott Award Advisory Committee. Retrieved March 21, 2011. Eugene Garfield is member of the Advisory Committee.
4. "John Scott Medal Fund". Science. 55 (1422). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 344. March 31, 1922. doi:10.1126/science.55.1422.344-a. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
5. "Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture". Retrieved March 23, 2011.
6. Benjamin Silliman (1830). "Miscellanies - Premiums for useful inventions". American Journal of Science and Arts. 18 (July). Hezekiah Howe: 382. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
7. "E.S. (Edgar Sharp) McFadden Papers". Manuscript Archive. Jan 1, 2019. Retrieved Jun 5, 2022.
8. "The John Scott Award". thejohnscottaward.github.io. The John Scott Award. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
9. Vitez, Michael (21 November 2013). "3 Phila. medical men to be honored". The Philadelphia Inquirer.

External links

• The award webpage Archived 2020-03-16 at the Wayback Machine
• The Franklin Institute: The John Scott Legacy Medal
• "The John Scott Award Recipients". Eugene Garfield at University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 15 June 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2018. Medals awarded by The Franklin Institute between 1822 and 2017.