Originally awarded from 1832 to 1866 in the Russian Empire, it was revived by the government of Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast in 1993.

Among the winners were many prominent Russian scientists: the founder of field surgery and inventor of the plaster immobilisation method in treatment of fractures, Nikolai Pirogov; the seafarer and geographer Adam Johann von Krusenstern, who led the first russian circumnavigation of the globe; Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table of elements; Boris Jacobi, pioneer of the first usable electric motors; and many others.

In 1993, on the initiative of the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Mesyats and the governor of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Eduard Rossel, the Demidov Prize traditions were restored.

According to the tradition every year the Demidov Scientific Foundation chooses three or four academicians to receive the award.

The awards ceremony takes place every year at the Governor's Palace of Sverdlovsk Oblast, in Yekaterinburg, Russia.