 He was awarded the Corday-Morgan medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2012.Lee Cronin was the subject of a film entitled "Inorganica", which documents the progress of his research in inorganic biology and origins of life.In 2014 Lee Cronin was recognised as one of the UK’s top 10 Inspiring Sciences and Engineers (RISE) as well as being recognised as one of the top 100 UK practising Sciences by the UK Science Council

In 2015 Lee Cronin gave the Royal Society of Edinburgh BP / Hutton Prize for Energy innovation and also was named winner of the Tilden Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015.