Late 2007, and Assoc. Professor Dr Marc Shaw was awarded the title FRGS: a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This is a huge honour for WORLDWISE.

The Royal Geographical Society is a British Learned Society founded in 1830 with the name Geographical Society of London, for the advancement of geographical science, under the patronage of King William IV. It was given a Royal charter by Queen Victoria in 1859.

History
Founder members of the Society include Sir John Barrow and Francis Beaufort. It has been a key associate and supporter of many famous explorers and expeditions including those of: Charles Darwin, David Livingstone, Scott of the Antarctic, Ernest Shackleton, Henry Morton Stanley, and New Zealand’s own Sir Edmund Hillary.

From the middle of the 19th Century until the end of World War I, expeditions sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society were frequently front page news, and the opinions of its president and board members would be avidly sought by journalists and editors.

Today the Society is a leading world centre for geographical learning - supporting education, teaching, research and scientific expeditions, as well as promoting public understanding and enjoyment of geography. The society has merged with the Institute of British Geographers and is properly known as the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).The main offices of the Society are in London.

Professor Shaw has been involved on expeditions into a number of places including Mongolia, Indonesia and the Amazonas region of Brazil and Venezuela. In 2007, he was awarded the New Zealand Special Service Medal (Clasp-Asian Tsunami), from the New Zealand Government (for civilian humanitarian service in Nias Island, in January 2005, and for setting up an ambulance service in tsunami-damaged Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka later in 2005).