British Geological Survey HRA Gus Gunn to be awarded MBE

Andrew Gordon Gunn – known to all as Gus – has been awarded an MBE in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

The list recognises the outstanding achievements of people from many disciplines across the UK. Mr Gunn has been bestowed this prestigious award for services to Environmental Research. 

Formerly BGS’ Principal Economic Geologist, Mr Gunn became an Honorary Research Fellow earlier this year.

Much of Mr Gunn’s UK work was carried out as part of the now legendary BGS Mineral Reconnaissance Programme where he worked on a wide variety projects from Shetland to Devon via the Dalradian of the NW British Isles.

Mr Gunn’s breadth of international work for BGS is long and impressive, including major mapping and mineral exploration programmes in Bolivia and Ecuador. Mr Gunn spent many weeks in the field in wild and remote Andean terranes. He was also a major contributor to the BGS programme in Africa over the years, from Mauritania to Ethiopia, Botswana to Liberia

Between 2007 and 2012 Mr Gunn was head of the BGS Metallic Minerals team, leading the radical shift from researching ‘traditional’ base and precious metal deposits (such as copper and gold) into the much less well known area of critical metal deposits. This move put BGS at the forefront of research on this topic in the UK and Europe, as well as securing Mr Gunn’s place as the leading UK expert on criticality assessment and metal supply security. Mr Gunn has provided advice on critical metals and security of supply to the UK Government and Parliament, the EU, NATO, the International Energy Agency and industry, Latterly advising colleagues at the Faraday Challenge and Innovate UK on how to meet the raw material challenges associated with the development of UK manufacturing capacity for electric vehicles.

I am delighted, highly honoured and pleasantly surprised to receive this award. I would like to thank all the people I have worked with over many years, both inside and outside BGS, and especially those who recommended me for this honour.

With rapidly growing demand from new and green technologies there is major concern about the so-called critical metals essential for low carbon technologies, such as clean energy and transport. I have been part of the BGS team working in this field since 2008 and we are now a key global player. I am sure this will continue in the future.

Gus Gunn

I’m thrilled at Gus being awarded an MBE. He is universally admired and respected in the field of minerals and there is a no more deserving person to receive this honour.

Karen Hanghoj, BGS Director