The award is supported by Microsoft Research and is named in honour of Robin Milner, a prolific pioneer in computer science[1] who, among other contributions, designed LCF and the programming language ML.
[2] Recipients should be active researchers in computer science who are either European or have resided in Europe for at least 12 months prior to their nomination.
Winners receive a bronze medal and a personal prize of £5,000 and are invited to deliver a public lecture on their research at the Society.
[4] The inaugural winner Gordon Plotkin received his prize in 2012[5] but delivered his public lecture in 2013,[6] the same year as Serge Abiteboul.
[7] Although the 2019 recipient Eugene Myers is American, he moved to Dresden, Germany, in 2012 to become a director of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics,[8] thus meeting the criteria for a researcher who is European or has lived in Europe for at least 12 months.