Professor Sir Robert Tony Watson CMG FRS (DSc)

Wednesday 17 July 2024 3:00pm

Sir Robert Tony Watson is one of the most influential environmental scientists worldwide, contributing to multiple assessments of sciences to inform international and national policies and actions. His research interests include biodiversity and ecosystem services, agriculture, climate change, and stratospheric ozone.

Among key positions held, Sir Watson was a former Scientific Advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, White House; Chief Scientist at the World Bank; Chief Scientific Advisor in the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Strategic Director for the Tyndall Center, University of East Anglia; and he is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of East Anglia.

He has chaired, co-chaired or directed several influential scientific assessments. Three of the assessments he has chaired have received prestigious awards - the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment won the 2006 Zayed Prize; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize; and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity.

He is the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and honorary degrees which include a Knights Bachelor (2012), Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (2003); Fellow of the Royal Society (2011), member of the American Philosophical Society (2020), honorary member of the AMS (2021), UN Champion of the World for Science and Innovation (2014), the Asahi Glass Blue Planet Prize (2010), the Global Green Award for International Environmental Leadership (2003), and several Honorary Doctor of Sciences.