On 6 October 2019, Professor Gordon Pace won the Award for Scientific Innovation, as part of the Awards for Digital Innovation organised by the Parliamentary Secretariat for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation together with the DELTA Summit.

The award was given in recognition of his research on blockchain technologies, particularly smart contract verification, and on formal reasoning about legal and smart contracts.

Professor Pace, member of the Centre for DLTs and the Department of Computer Science, has long worked on mathematical and practical means of ensuring computer system dependability and giving software assurances. Over these past few years, his research resulted in the development of scientific techniques and practical tools for analysing smart contracts and their relationship with legal contracts.