Heck retired from the University of Delaware in 1989, where he became the Willis F. Harrington Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Its annual lectureship was named in his honor in 2004. In 2005, he was awarded the Wallace H. Carothers Award, which recognizes creative applications of chemistry that have had substantial commercial impact. He was awarded the 2006 Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods. On 6 October 2010, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences awarded Heck the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shared the 2010 Nobel Prize with Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis." In 2011, Heck was awarded the Glenn T. Seaborg Medal for his work on palladium-catalyzed cross couplings.
Heck moved to the Philippines after retirement in 1989 with his wife, Socorro Nardo-Heck. The couple had no children.