Giuliano Panza received the honorary Order of merit of the Italian Republic (Cavaliere dell’Ordine al “Merito della Repubblica”) on June 2nd, 2015 to acknowledge his internationally valued contributions to seismology and to the understanding of the Earth’s structure, his continual and fruitful commitment in the study of seismic safety, as well as his constant didactic effort in the academic community and at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, where he taught hundreds of students from all over the world, in particular from developing countries.