Award Explorers Club

Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Annual Literature Award (2010)

Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize (2016)

Ness Award (2016)

Costa Biography Award (2015)

LA Times Book Prize (2016)

James Wright Award for Nature Writing (2016)

Acqui Storia Award (2017)

Dingle Prize (2017)

Sarah Chapman Francis Medal, The Garden Club of America (2017)

Bayerischer Buchpreis (2016)

China Nature Book Award (2018)

Le Priz du doyen Jean de Feytaud (2018)

Lichtenberg-Medaille Academy of Sciences Göttingen (2019)

Wissensbuch des Jahres (2019)

ITB Book Awards (2020)

Royal Society of Literature (Fellow, 2018)

Royal Geographical Society (Fellow)

Order of the British Empire (Commander, 2020)

Order of the British Empire (Officer, 2010)

Royal Society (Fellow, 2016)

Michael Faraday Prize (2012)

Institute of Physics President's Medal (2012)

Broadcasting Press Guild Awards for 'Best Performer' in a non-acting role (2011)

Royal Television Society Best Presenter and Best Science/Natural History programme (2011)

Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and Prize (2010)

British Association Lord Kelvin Award (2006)

National Academy of Sciences (Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal | 1936)

American Ornithologists' Union (Brewster medal | 1937)

Brown University (hon. ScD | 1941)

John Burroughs Association

Geographic Society

Three Village Central School District, Long Island, New York (Robert Cushman Murphy Junior High School | named after him)

Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi | named after him)

Royal Geographical Society (Fellow)

Royal Canadian Geographical Society (Fellow)