The Academy Council of 6 February 1991 set up the following rules for the Koyré medal and the prize for young historians.
The Koyré medal is awarded for a scholar’s career contribution rather than for a particular achievement. The candidate needs not to be a member of the Academy. Nomination of a Koyré medallist must be made in writing by a member of the Academy. The Council will choose the medallist via a mail ballot repeated until an absolute majority is attained. A decision will be made between General Assemblies and the award made at the next General Assembly.
The prize for young historians will be decided and awarded on the schedule that applies to the Koyré medallist. The prize rewards a first work, in the history of science. Candidates can put themselves forward or be nominated by a member of the Academy. In either case the case must be submitted in writing and the work proposed for the prize sent to the Academy. The Council will decide the winner at one of its regular meetings by a majority vote of the members present. The prize will consist of a diploma and a cheque, the amount of which may vary from time to time.
1. Earlier recipients of the Koyré medal were :
- in 1968 to D.T. Whiteside for the first two volumes of his edition The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, Cambridge, 1967-1968 ;
- in 1971 to A.P. Yushkevich and his collaborators for the four-volume work History of the Nation's Mathematics [in Russian], Moscow and Kiev, 1964-70 ; and to B. Suchodolski and collaborators for the two-volume work History of Polish Science [in Polish], Warsaw, 1970 ;
- in 1974 to L. Geymonat for the four-volume work Storia del pensiero filosofico e scientifico, Milan, 1972 ;
- in 1981 to M. Clagett for his four-volume Archimedes in the Middle Ages, Madison, Wisconsin, 1964 to Philadelphia, 1980 ;
- in 1986, to C.C. Gillispie and his collaborators for the Dictionary of scientific biography, New York, 1970-1980 ;
- in 1989, to J.D. North for his book Chaucer's Universe, Oxford, 1988 ;
- in 1991, to R. Rashed for all his writings ;
- in 1993, to W. Shea for all his writings ;
- in 1995, Juan Vernet, Julio Samsó and the school of historians in Al-Andalus ;
- in 1997, René Taton ;
- in 1999, John Heilbron ;
- in 2001, Izabella Bashmakova and Christian Houzel ;
- in 2003, Storia della scienza, initiée par Vincenzo Cappelletti ;
- in 2005, Guy Beaujouan, for all his writings ;
- en 2007, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, for all his writings.
2. A prize for young historians was awarded :
- in 1968 to Serge Demidov for his memoir Diffusion, extension, and limits of the axiomatic method in modern science, after the example of geometry ;
- in 1986, to C. Meinel for his writings in the history of chemistry ;
- in 1989, to W. Newman for his critical edition of the Summa perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber (published in 1991 in Collection de Travaux of the Academy, n° 35) ;
- in 1993, to B. Van Den Abeele for his book Les traités latins de fauconnerie ;
- in 1995, to Marco Beretta, for The enlightenment of matter, the definition of chemistry from Agricola to Lavoisier ;
- in 1997, to Marie-Madeleine Saby, for “Les canons de Jean de Lignères sur les tables astronomiques de 1321” ;
- in 1999, to Andrea Breard and to Jean-Pierre Sutto.
- in 2001, to Antonella Romano, for “La contre-réforme mathématique, constitution et diffusion d’une culture mathématique jésuite à la Renaissance, and Hiroshi HiraI, for “Le concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance, de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi”.
- in 2003, to Alberto Jori for « Aristotele ».
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