CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Leeuwenhoek Medal

award

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 2, 2023
Entity authorityQ136733 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Leeuwenhoek Medal, established in 1875 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), in honor of the 17th- and 18th-century microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, is granted every ten years to the scientist judged to have made the most significant contribution to microbiology during the preceding decade.

Starting in 2015, the Royal Dutch Society for Microbiology (KNVM) began awarding the Leeuwenhoek Medal, selecting Jillian Banfield, the first woman to receive the award in 2023.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Leeuwenhoek Medal” as award. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leeuwenhoek, Medal and award.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1875, 2015, 2023—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Leeuwenhoek, Medal and award providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Leeuwenhoek Medal”, the useful work is to connect “award” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 2, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q136733. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1875, 2015 and 2023.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Leeuwenhoek Medal”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Leeuwenhoek Medal primary sources, Leeuwenhoek Medal archive and Leeuwenhoek research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Leeuwenhoek Medal”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Leeuwenhoek Medal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.