CIC Medal

Sponsored by the CIC

The CIC Medal is presented as a mark of distinction and recognition to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the science of chemistry or chemical engineering in Canada, this is the CIC’s top award.

View the Terms of Reference and list of Past Winners

The 2026 winner of the CIC Medal is:

Michael G. Organ, MCIC
University of Ottawa
 

Michael Organ’s research program has made ground-breaking contributions to fundamental knowledge in Chemistry and Engineering that have empowered the discovery and manufacture of essential molecules, including pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and electronics. Bridging Chemistry and Engineering, Organ is internationally recognized as a seminal creator of flow chemistry for fine-chemical synthesis. His inventions in this field were put to the test during the pandemic when he was sought to hurriedly design a flow reactor to produce, at scale, a chemical key in test-kit manufacture required to help free the world from lockdown (NSERC Synergy and Governor General’s Innovation Awards). His painstaking mechanistic studies on the role of salt in Pd-catalysed cross-coupling was recognized internationally by C&E News as a ‘Top10 Discovery in Synthetic Chemistry’. His group was the leader in rational design of N-heterocyclic carbene ligands, producing a family of cross-coupling catalysts demonstrating unparalleled reactivity and selectivity. The impact of these catalysts is confirmed in >10,000 publications in multiple application areas highlighting the unique particularities of these catalysts, now distributed worldwide by >20 companies. The use of his ‘PEPPSI’ catalysts is described in >15,000 patent applications; Pd-PEPPSI-IPent was awarded (globally) ‘Reagent of the Year’ by Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis.

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Past Winners