Award Ruperto Carola Honours Geoffrey Boulton with Great University Medal
31 March 2026
The longstanding chair of the Academic Advisory Council has given sustained support to the development of Heidelberg University
Prof. Dr Geoffrey Boulton, the longstanding chair of Heidelberg University’s Academic Advisory Council (AAC), has been honoured with the Great University Medal for his outstanding services to Ruperto Carola. “As an eminent academic advisor, Geoffrey Boulton has given sustained support to Heidelberg University for two decades. Specifically, the AAC has from the beginning advised and accompanied the university in all the rounds of the excellence competition of the federal and state governments. Ruperto Carola owes a great deal to the knowledge and commitment of Geoffrey Boulton,” emphasized Rector Prof. Dr Frauke Melchior. She presented the award at a ceremony at which the AAC was also saying farewell to the geoscientist and professor emeritus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
The Academic Advisory Council was founded in the lead-up to the newly established Excellence Initiative of the federal and state governments in order to support the university with external expertise when competing for the title of University of Excellence. Prof. Boulton, a member from the very beginning, became chair of the AAC in 2009. Prof. Dr Bernhard Eitel, Rector of Heidelberg University from 2007 to 2023, stated in his tribute that, in the person of Geoffrey Boulton, he had always known he had an advisor at his side who “fought for research and its role in our society using the resources of academia”. Precisely the start of their cooperation had been marked by radical changes, he continued, such as the creation of the European Higher Education Area and the Bologna reforms. Geoffrey Boulton and the other members of the Academic Advisory Council had proved to be patient instructors, “who taught us how to get a heavy university tanker moving in turbulent times and to keep it on course,” the Rector emeritus added. Prof. Boulton had made an immense contribution to “finding innovative ways for our academic community to overcome resistances and always to be a bit faster than our competitors”. The Academic Advisory Council was established in 2006 by the rectorate of Prof. Dr Peter Hommelhoff.
Geoffrey Boulton taught and pursued research as Professor of Geology at the University of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2008. He has received multiple awards for his scientific work; several honorary doctorates have been conferred on him, including from the Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciences of Heidelberg University. The researcher is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Royal Society, the national scientific academy of the UK. Prof. Boulton has served in high-ranking advisory bodies, for instance in the standing Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology. Since 2018 he has been a member of the Governing Board of the International Science Council, which connects up scientific expertise and advice on core issues at the global level.
The ceremony to award the Great University Medal to Geoffrey Boulton took place on 30 March 2026.