Honours and awards
The BDA's Honours and Awards are designed to acknowledge the unsung heroes of our profession; those who uphold and improve the standards of dentistry.
National President, Medals, Honours and Awards
Each year the BDA Honours and Awards Committee accept nominations for National President, Medals, Honours and Awards.
National President is the highest honour the Association can bestow, and it celebrates the very best in our profession.
The BDA's Medals, Honours and Awards are designed to acknowledge the unsung heroes of our profession; those who uphold and improve the standards of dentistry and to members and non-members who have contributed to the advancement of the BDA or the profession.
Who can be nominated?
Many nominations are made through our branches and sections, committees, and other networks, but we encourage nominations from anyone who feels their nominee meets our criteria. Self-nominations are not permitted.
Awards should recognise contemporaneous service, and we welcome nominations which reflect the diversity of the profession and at all stages of the career. We encourage nominations from academic, community, hospital, or armed forces dentists. The Joy Harrild Award is designed to honour young dentists with 10 years of qualification. It is important to note that the standard of BDA awards is high and nomination forms should reflect this.
How do I nominate someone?
The deadline is 29 May 2026.
Our nomination form is designed to help you show how your nominee has met the Awards criteria. It is important to try and complete as many sections as possible. Please use the links below to the sample form for each honour and award to give some guidance.
Awards criteria
Honours - President, Honorary Membership, Life Membership; Medals - Fellowship Medal, John Tomes Medal; Awards: Roll of Distinction, Award for Excellence, Joy Harrild Award. Each aims to honour service provided from different areas of dentistry - please ensure you look at the Awards' criteria before nominating.
Branch, section, or group nomination
Nominations for National President, medals, honours and awards will be hugely strengthened if they receive support from the relevant, branch, section, or group, particularly where the nomination is based on the member’s contribution to the branch, section, or group. The BDA’s country councils and committees can also support nominations. We recognise that in some cases – for example, where the nomination is based on the member’s scientific achievement – it is not necessary for the nomination to be supported by a BDA body. However, we do not accept self-nominations or nominations made by family members or friends.
BDA membership
Unless the medal, honour or award is specifically open to individuals who are not BDA members or eligible for BDA membership, such as Honorary Membership and the Roll of Distinction, nominees are expected to be BDA members or to have had long-standing membership that has been given up for reasons such as retirement.
Nominees for National President should be BDA members or hold Honorary Membership of the Association.
Level of information to provide
The covering letter of the nomination form provides detail on completing a nomination form and the process involved. It is important that nominations provide as much detail as possible about the nominee to help the Honours and Awards Committee make a fair decision. Nominators should not assume that the Committee will have existing knowledge of the nominee and so should provide comprehensive information about their career, contributions, and achievements.
Where the nominee is not aware of the nomination, we appreciate this can be difficult and so it is best to consult with a range of colleagues to put together as much information as you can.
BDA staff are happy to provide advice on nominations and will request further information where nominations are not detailed enough, but nominators should not expect that staff will undertake additional research. The Committee will only be presented with the information provided by the nominator and that which is available from the BDA’s membership database (eg length of membership, previous medals, honours or awards received).
Our Membership Team are happy to support nominators with relevant membership information about nominees, please email membership@bda.org or call 020 7563 4550.
The Chair of the Honours and Awards Committee, Roz McMullan roz.mcmullan@bda.org, is also willing to advise on any proposed nomination.
Handwritten nominations and signing nomination forms
Nominators are asked to fill in the nomination form electronically. Handwritten forms are not accepted.
Signatures on nomination forms do not have to be handwritten; a typed ‘e-signature’ is perfectly acceptable. Scanning in nomination forms that have been hand-signed makes them difficult to process and this should be avoided where possible.
Any questions?
Please contact our Honours and Awards secretariat, Alison Magee: alison.magee@bda.org.
BDJ Obituary
If there is somebody you would like to write an obituary for please scroll to the end of thisBDJ guidance for authors page for more details.
Obituaries must be no more than 400 words unless it is for a past national BDA president when a longer obituary (800 words) is acceptable.
If you would like us to look for biographical information that might feed into your more personal memories please contact the library at library@bda.org.
Nominations for honours and awards will be hugely strengthened if they receive support from the relevant, branch, section, or group, particularly where the nomination is based on the members’ contribution to the branch, section, or group. The BDA’s country councils and committees can also support nominations. We recognise that in some cases – for example, where the nomination is based on the members’ scientific achievement – it is not necessary for the nomination to be supported by a BDA body. However, we do not accept self-nominations or nominations made by family members or friends.
Unless the honour or award is specifically open to individuals who are not BDA members or eligible for BDA membership, such as Honorary Membership and the Roll of Distinction, nominees are expected to be BDA members or to have had long-standing membership that has been given up for reasons such as retirement.
It is important that nominations provide as much detail as possible about the nominee to help the Honours and Awards Committee make a fair decision. Nominators should not assume that the Committee will have existing knowledge of the nominee and so should provide comprehensive information about their career, contributions, and achievements. Where the nominee is not aware of the nomination, we appreciate this can be difficult and so it is best to consult with a range of colleagues to put together as much information as you can.
BDA staff are happy to provide advice on nominations and will request further information where nominations are not detailed enough, but nominators should not expect that staff will undertake additional research. The Committee will only be presented with the information provided by the nominator and that which is available from the BDA’s membership database (e.g. Length of membership, previous honours or awards received).
Our Membership Team are happy to support nominators with relevant membership information about nominees, please email membership@bda.org or call 020 7563 4550.
The Chair of the Honours and Awards Committee, Roz McMullan roz.mcmullan@bda.org, is also willing to advise on any proposed nomination.
Nominators are asked to fill in the nomination form electronically. Handwritten forms are not accepted.
Signatures on nomination forms do not have to be handwritten; a typed ‘e-signature’ is perfectly acceptable. Scanning in nomination forms that have been hand-signed makes them difficult to process and this should be avoided where possible.