AYA Recognition & Rewards Award

Deadline 30 September 2022

AYA explicitly supports the current attention for Recognition and Rewards in Dutch academia and is committed to furthering forms of excellence in academia that are often overlooked in the current system. To express this commitment, we have installed a new award, aimed at academic staff at UvA and VU whose exceptional contributions to the academy are often overlooked, but nevertheless are essential for a healthy university, be it in the form of teaching, societal impact, or of academic community support as a colleague, teacher, supervisor or mentor.

A considerable prize of €2000,- is attached to the award, that the winners can spend as they see fit within the university context, as personal budget allocated to the faculty of the winners. The idea behind this is that staff whose main focus is not on research often have less resources available for conference travel, open access publication, teaching innovation, workshops and seminars, or societal impact projects. By recognizing and rewarding their exceptional contributions to other domains than research, we hope to give them the means to either further invest in these qualities that ‘regular’ 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.

Which awards are available?

Three prizes will be awarded of €2000,- each, to be used by the winners as allocated personal budget that they can spend as they see fit within the university context, e.g. for refresher courses/teaching innovation/research/conference travel/societal impact projects etc.

Categories:

Teaching
This is aimed at staff that goes ‘above and beyond’ in the domain of teaching, who are innovative in their teaching methods, and have found special ways to engage students in their courses.
Societal impact
This is aimed at staff who make 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 otherwise make exceptional societal impact in their role as an academic
Academic community support
We all have that one colleague who always goes the extra mile to be of service to others, 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 a bit more, or who simply always makes sure that there is good social cohesion on the department. Why not reward that as well for once.

Who can be nominated?

All academic staff from UvA and VU can be nominated. (Former) AYA members are excluded from being nominated.

Who can nominate?

Any academic staff at VU and UvA can nominate his/her/their colleagues. (Former) AYA members are allowed to nominate as well. Nomination takes place through this form on the site of AYA.

When can we nominate?

The nomination open 1 July 2022 and closes 30 September 2022.

Jury

The jury consists of the members of the Science Policy group of AYA. They judge the nominations in October and reach their verdict by October 15. Winners will receive a message then and will be invited to the award ceremony.

Award ceremony

The award ceremony will take place at the inauguration event of new AYA members in November.

Questions?

Please contact Pieter Coppens (p.coppens@vu.nl)

Acknowledgment

This award is inspired by an earlier excellent initiative from our colleagues from Radboud Young Academy in Nijmegen. They kindly allowed us to also implement this initiative in Amsterdam.