Along the way, Dr Sid collected an Order of the British Empire from the Queen of England in 2002, and for some time there have been efforts by his many fans to get him knighted. In January 2004, he retired as
F1 medical doctor. On 12 October 2004, the 100th anniversary of
FIA, Professor Watkins became the first president of the FIA Foundation for the Automobile and society, and then, two months later, he was made the first president of FIA's Institute of Motor Sport Safety. The Motorsport Safety Fund has selected Dr Watkins to be its speaker at the Watkins Lecture at the 2007
Autosport International Show in January 2007. The annual lecture concerns motorsport safety related topics.
The FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety has six Research and Working Groups - Open Cockpit Research Group; Safety Training Working Group, Closed Car Research Group; Medical Training Working Group; Karting Research Group; and Industry Liaison Group. This year, the Institute created and has issued a drivers' handbook.
Dr Watkins said the FIA Institute is quite open with sharing its information with the various involved manufacturers and exposes the manufacturers' representatives to data. And that sharing works both ways. Recently, Peugeot presented its own test results to the FIA Commission.
After the keynote speech, it was pointed out to Dr Watkins that, in America, such sharing is not always the case. The example given was NASCAR, which funds most of its research, but doesn't always share it completely with the involved manufacturers.
