IRI Medal
The IRI Medal, established in 1946, recognizes and honors leaders of technology for their outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation which contribute broadly to the development of industry and to the benefit of society. This award is traditionally presented at the IRI Annual Conference.
Eligible recipients: IRI members and nonmembers.
IRI Achievement Award
The IRI Achievement Award, established in 1973, is given to honor outstanding accomplishment in individual creativity and innovation that contribute broadly to the development of industry and to the benefit of society. The award is presented at the IRI Fall Conference.
Eligible recipients: IRI members and nonmembers.
Maurice Holland Award
The Maurice Holland Award was established in 1982 in honor of IRI’s founder, Maurice Holland. The award recognizes the best paper published in Research-Technology Management in the previous year that meets the criteria of significance to the field of R&D, technology, and innovation management; originality of new management concepts; and excellence in clarity of presentation. The award is presented at the IRI Fall Conference.
Eligible recipients: IRI members and nonmembers.
IRI Corporate Excellence Award
The purpose of this award is to recognize recent outstanding achievement and projects with meaningful impact and a significant contribution to their industry and society. This award is presented at the IRI Annual Conference.
One company will be awarded in each of the five categories: Culture, Corporate Citizenship, Scientific Breakthroughs, Digital and Technological Innovation, and Transformative Partnerships
Eligible recipients: IRI members and nonmembers.
IRI Innovation Award
The purpose of this award is for IRI members to recognize an individual or team within their own company for contributions to the field of innovation leadership. This award is presented at the IRI Annual Conference.
Nominations may only be submitted by employees of current IRI member companies.
Eligible recipients: IRI members only
Women in Technology and Innovation Leadership Award
This award will honor women of innovation and technology, recognizing individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their field by working to improve equality, increase access to opportunities for women in STEM fields. This award is presented at the IRI Annual Conference.
Eligible recipients: IRI members and nonmembers.

IRI Medal
Congratulations to the 2021 IRI Medalist, Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind.
Demis Hassabis is the CEO and founder of DeepMind, the world’s leading AI research company that aims to solve intelligence and advance scientific discovery for all.
Founded in 2010, DeepMind achieved breakthrough results in many challenging AI domains from StarCraft II to protein folding, and has published over 1000 research papers – including more than a dozen in Nature and Science. In 2016, DeepMind developed AlphaGo, the first program to beat a world champion at the complex game of Go, and in 2020, DeepMind won the CASP14 protein structure prediction competition with its AlphaFold program, reaching a level of accuracy considered to solve the 50-year grand challenge of protein structure prediction.
A child chess and programming prodigy, Demis coded the classic game Theme Park aged 17. After graduating from Cambridge University in computer science, he founded pioneering videogames company Elixir Studios, and completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London. The journal Science listed his neuroscience research as one of 2007’s top ten breakthroughs. He is a five-time World Games Champion, a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2017 he featured in the Time 100 list of most influential people, and in 2018 he was awarded a CBE. In 2020 he was awarded the Dan David Prize Future Award for his work on AI.
Previous Medalists

IRI Achievement Award
Past Recipients
William F. Gresham (1974) William G. Pfann (1975) Maurice R. Hilleman (1976) LeGrand Van Uitert (1977) Robert H. Wentoff, Jr. (1978) Frank B. Colton (1979) Stanley D. Stookey (1980) Andrew H. Bobeck (1981) Robert N. Noyce (1982) Herbert W. Boyer (1983) John W. Backus (1984) Allan S. Hay (1985) John E. Franz (1986) Robert D. Maurer (1987) Howard G. Rogers (1988) Alfred Yi Cho (1989) Robert H. Dennard (1990) Leonard S. Cutler (1991) Victor Mills (1992) Richard H. Frenkiel (1993) Marvin M. Johnson (1994) Marinus Los (1995) Andrzej M. Pawlak (1996) Stephanie L. Kwolek (1997) Simon F. Campbell (1998) James E. West (1999) Harry W. Coover (2000) C. Don Bateman (2001) George H. Beall (2002) Madan M. Bhasin (2003) Edith M. Flanigan (2004) Dennis M. Richie ( 2005) Paul D. Trokhan ( 2006) Rakesh Agrawal (2007) Dean L. Kamen (2008) Ashok J. Joshi (2009) Linden Blue (2010) Richard Hayes (2011) John J. Curro (2012) Charles “Chuck” Hull (2015)
Tan Le (2018)

Holland Award
Kah-hin Chai – Associate Professor of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management, National University of Singapore College of Design and Engineering
James Nebus – Department Chair and Associate Professor of Strategy and International Business, Suffolk University Sawyer Business School
Annapoornima S. Subramanian – Associate Professor of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management, National University of Singapore College of Design and Engineering
Past Recipients
D. Bruce Merrifield (1982) Warren R. Stumpe (1983) George E. Manners, Jr., Joseph A. Steger, Thomas W. Zimmerer (1984) Robert A. Frosch (1985) Richard N. Foster, Alan M. Kantrow, Lawrence H. Linden, Roger L. Whiteley (1986) Harry W. Coover (1987) Roland W. Schmitt (1988) Lester C. Krogh, Julianne H. Prager, David P. Sorensen, John D. Tomlinson (1989) Albert C. Perrino, James W. Tipping (1990) Robert G. Cooper (1991) Walter L. Robb (1992) Graham R. Mitchell (1993) C. K. Prahalad (1994) Robert G. Cooper (1995) Mark R. Gallon and Harold M. Stillman (1996) Deb Chatterji (1997) Sheldon A. Buckler (1998) John Seely Brown (1999) William C. Herbein, Robert C. Morris, and Gregory R. Smith (2000) Ian C. MacMillan and Rita Gunther McGrath (2001) Marc H. Meyer and Paul C. Mugge (2002) Robin A. Karol, Ross C. Loeser, and Richard H. Tait (2003) Jeffrey T. Glass, Ingrid M. Ensing, and Gerardine DeSanctis (2004) Jay Paap and Ralph Katz (2005) Miles P. Drake, Nabil Y. Sakkab, and Ronald Jonash (2007) Raymond R. Cosner, E. Jefferson Hynds, Alan R. Fusfeld, Carl V. Loweth, Charles Scouten, and Richard Albright (2008) Paul B. Germeraad and Ronald P. Taylor (2009) Seongkeun Jang, Yongki Yoon, Inseong Lee, and Jinwoo Kim (2010) William Banholzer (2011) Bilal Kaafarani and Jane Edison Stevenson (2012) Peter Toft, Bill Crandall, and Paul Henderson (2013) Ray O. Johnson and John D. Evans (2014) Abhijit Ganguly and James Euchner (2015) Anita Friis Sommer, Christian Hedegaard, Iskra Dukovska-Popovska, and Kenn Steger-Jensen (2016) Emily B.Kennedy and Thomas A. Marting (2017) Andrew Harrison (2018)