President's Research Impact Award

Nomination Information

 Selection Committee and Timeline:

Nominees will be evaluated by a selection committee composed of UT researchers and leaders with diverse expertise and demonstrated experience translating their research, scholarship or creative activity for public benefit, whether through external stakeholder engagement, influence on policy or other means. Ad hoc external reviewers might also be called upon, depending on the content of the nominations received.

• Nomination period: August 10 – September 22, 2023
• Nomination deadline: 4:59 PM Central Time on September 22, 2023
• Award decisions announced: Recipients will be notified in early November and receive the award at the President’s Research Impact Awards ceremony in April, 2024.

Eligibility:

• Nominees must be UT Austin faculty (tenured/tenure-track or non-tenure track) and/or permanent, senior-level staff researchers with a current appointment and with Principal Investigator status at the time of nomination and award.
• Self-nominations are accepted.
• A nomination may be made by any member of the campus community.
• Nominations may be for individuals or teams of principal investigators.

Submission Instructions:

All nominations must be submitted electronically here on or before the deadline noted above.

For questions regarding the President's Research Impact Awards, please contact honorific-vpr@austin.utexas.edu.

Nomination Materials to be Submitted by the Nominator:

1. Completed nomination form to be filled out in InfoReady.

The completed online nomination should include the following uploaded as a single PDF:

1. Curriculum Vitae of the nominee(s)
2. Two (2) nomination letters from people who know the nominee and their work well and can address the points below:
   1. One letter (no more than 2 pages) from a colleague within nominee’s scholarly/creative discipline. This can be someone inside or outside of the university and can include colleagues who have collaborated with the nominee in the last several years, but should not be a nominee’s student, postdoc, staff direct report or otherwise in a training or mentorship relationship with the nominee. This letter should speak to the merits and impact of the nominee’s research, scholarly or creative activity within their academic discipline.
   2. One letter (no more than 2 pages) from a non-academic individual or organization that has been positively impacted by the nominee’s research or creative activity, describing the work’s impact/benefit beyond the university.

Nomination letters should address the selection criteria listed below in describing the nominee(s), their work, and its impact beyond the university/academe. Use the title of each criterion as a heading at the beginning of paragraphs in your nomination letter, followed by short summaries of the ways the nomination reflects each criterion. Nominations must specifically describe the significance of the research to a specific community that contributes new knowledge or insights with a direct impact. For self-nominations, the nominee may collect these letters and upload them to InfoReady themselves (there is no need to keep the letters’ content hidden from the nominee). 

Selection Criteria:

The following criteria will be considered in the selection of President’s Research Impact Award recipients. A nominee need not meet all criteria to be nominated:

1. Commitment
   1. The nominee(s) has/have demonstrated, through their work, a commitment to ensuring that research benefits society.
   2. Examples that could demonstrate this commitment may include but are not limited to: longstanding partnerships with non-academic partners, inclusion of non-academic stakeholders in crafting a research agenda, or efforts to share research through a variety of communication channels beyond academic journals and conferences.
2. Alignment
   1. Evidence that the nominee’s research or creative work aligns with a societal question or problem, and clear explanation of how the research has served to address or answer that question by creating new understanding, by influencing policy, or by otherwise improving quality of life regarding a specific aspect of society.
   2. Who or what benefited from the nominee’s research, scholarship or creative activity has been clearly identified.
3. Evidence of Impact
   1. There is evidence of impact in the nominee’s work. Evidence could include quantitative and/or qualitative measures or indicators of outcomes — changes in understanding, behavior, or broader conditions in the related context of the focus area(s) of the nominee(s). Include specific details about the type of impact the nominee’s work has achieved.
   2. Specific aspects of the research or creative endeavor that were impactful are adequately described.
4. Advancement
   1. The work of the nominees(s) holds promise for raising the public’s awareness about and sustaining the public’s appreciation of the value of scholarly research and discovery in generating tangible benefits.