The Common Wealth Award for Science and Invention

Through the will of the late Ralph Hayes (1894-1977), the Common Wealth Awards are made annually in the fields of literature, science and invention, sociology, public service and government, dramatic arts and mass communications. The award, which includes a cash prize of $50,000, recognizes outstanding achievement world-wide in these eight fields of human endeavor and also serves as an incentive for people to make future contributions that enrich life in the world community.

PNC Bank (formerly the Bank of Delaware) serves as trustee for the awards. In order to meet the standards of peer recognition set forth by Hayes, nominations are currently provided by a number of prominent organizations that are pledged to the advancement, betterment or support of the particular area in which the award is made. Sigma Xi provides nominations for the Common Wealth Award For Science and Invention.

Ralph Hayes
Demonstrating unusual academic ability in his youth, Ralph Hayes developed into a gifted executive whose career would take him to the Office of the Secretary of War in Washington, into the motion picture industry, publishing and banking and to the top echelons of the Coca-Cola Company. For 35 years, he was a Coca-Cola executive, serving as secretary-treasurer, vice president and as a director of Coca-Cola International. He served on the board of directors of the Bank of Delaware from 1943 to 1965, having previously served as a Director of its predecessor, The Equitable Trust Company, from 1935 to 1943. Hayes also had a long and distinguished career of public service. He was a chairman of the James Foundation, president of Community Funds, Inc. and a long-time director of the New York Community Trust. Service to his fellow man was always uppermost in Ralph Hayes' mind. He died in 1977 at the age of 82, leaving the Common Wealth Awards as but one part of his charitable legacy.

Common Wealth Award Recipients
2005 Tim Berners-Lee
2005 Kip S. Thorne
2002 Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson
2001 J. Craig Venter, Celera Genomics
2000 Robert D. Ballard, JASON Foundation for Education
1999 Louis H. Miller, National Institutes of Health
1998 Stephanie Kwolek, Dupont (retired)
1997 Michael DeBakey, Baylor College of Medicine
1996 Andrew Wiles, Princeton University
1995 Karen Uhlenbeck, University of Texas, Austin
1994 Leland H. Hartwell, University of Washington
1993 Charles H. Townes, University of California, Berkeley
1992 Susan Solomon, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1991 Roger N. Beachy, Washington University
1990 J.C.R. Licklider, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1989 Leroy E. Hood, California Institute of Technology
1988 John B. MacChesney, Bell Laboratories

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