In 1946, Akers returned to the Board of ICI where he served as director of research until April 1953, when he retired, having reached the compulsory retirement age of 65. He established university research fellowships, and donated money to university laboratories for research purposes. In 1946, he established the Butterwick Research Laboratories to carry out fundamental research, unrelated to commercial objectives. They were later renamed the Akers Research Laboratories in his honour.
