AYA Recognition & Rewards Award

AYA welcomes and supports the current attention to Recognition & Rewards in Dutch academia and is committed to furthering forms of excellence and academic community care that are often overlooked in the current system. In line with this commitment, in 2022 we launched a new award aimed at academic staff at UvA and VU whose exceptional contributions to the academy might remain below the radar, but nevertheless are essential for a healthy university, be it in the form of teaching, societal impact, or of academic support as a colleague, teacher, supervisor or mentor. After three successful editions, the AYA Recognition & Rewards Award is now going into its fourth round.

Which awards are available?

Three prizes (of 2000 EUR each) in three different categories will be awarded, to be used by the winners as an allocated personal budget that they can spend as they see fit within the university context, for example, for refresher courses, teaching innovation, research, conference travel, or societal impact projects. The idea behind this is that especially staff whose main focus is not on research often have fewer resources available for conference travel, personal development, workshops and seminars, open access publication, teaching innovation, or societal impact projects. By recognizing and rewarding their exceptional contributions to other domains than research, we hope to give these staff members the means to either further invest in these qualities which the existing grant systems generally overlook, or make steps in the field of research that they could not find the time, space, and means to due to their exceptional commitment to other domains of the academy.

Award Categories

The AYA Recognition & Rewards Award is presented in three categories:

1. Teaching. This is aimed at staff who go ‘above and beyond’ in the domain of teaching, who are dedicated and innovative in their teaching methods, and have found original ways to engage students in their courses.

2. Societal impact. This is aimed at staff who make a particular investment in translating the insights of their field of study to a larger audience, who manage societal impact programs that deserve more attention and appreciation, or who otherwise make exceptional societal impact in their role as academics.

3. Academic community support. We all have that one colleague who always goes the extra mile to be of service to others, unselfish and generous, who never says no to a guest lecture, who structurally takes over teaching or organizational tasks so their colleagues can focus on research, who invests in students with difficulties just that little bit more, or who simply always makes sure that there is good social cohesion in the department. Let’s reward that as well for once.

Who can be nominated?

All academic staff form UvA and VU can be nominate his/her/their colleagues. Current and former AYA members are excluded from nominations.

Who can nominate?

Any academic staff at VU and UvA can nominate his/her/their colleagues. Current and former AYA members are allowed to nominate as well.

When can we nominate?

The nomination form closes on 13 October 2025 at midnight. Nominations can be submitted via this link.

Jury

The jury consists of members of the Amsterdam Young Academy. They will evaluate the nominations in the second half of October and determine the winners before 27 October 2025. The winners will receive a message and be invited to the award ceremony in the late afternoon of 4 November 2025.

Award ceremony

The award ceremony will take place during the inauguration event of new AYA members on 4 November 2025.

Questions?

Please contact Evgenia Lysova (e.lysova@vu.nl).

Acknowledgment

This award is inspired by an earlier excellent initiative form our colleagues from Radboud Young Academy in Nijmegen.