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, we have 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 community support as a colleague, teacher, supervisor or mentor. After successful editions in 2022 and 2023, the AYA Recognition & Rewards Award is now going into its third round.

A prize of 2000 EUR is attached to the award—a budget 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 especially staff whose main focus is not on research often have less 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.

Which awards are available?

Three prizes (of 2000 EUR each) in three different categories will be awarded, 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

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

2. 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.

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 a bit more, or who simply always makes sure that there is good social cohesion in the department. Why not reward that as well for once.

Who can be nominated?

All academic staff from UvA and VU can be nominated. 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 15 October 2024 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 October 27. The winners will receive a message and be invited to the award ceremony on November 5.

Award ceremony

The award ceremony will take place during the inauguration event of new AYA members on November 5, 2024.

Questions?

Please contact Diletta Martinelli (d.martinelli@uva.nl) or Klaas Eller (Klaas.eller@uva.nl).

Acknowledgment

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