Vitae Impact, Culture and Engagement (ICE) Awards Criteria and Nomination process
The inaugural Vitae Impact, Culture and Engagement (ICE) Awards will celebrate and amplify the work being done by the researcher development community, with the awards ceremony taking place on Monday 25 September during the Vitae International Researcher Development Conference Gala dinner at the Science and Industry Museum Manchester.
Nominations are now open for the Vitae ICE Awards. If there is a colleague you feel is demonstrating impactful work and should be recognised, we encourage you to nominate them using our short form.
How to make a nomination
- Identify which category you would like to make a nomination for (information below)
- Complete our nomination form, this will include:
Your details
Nominee details - the nominee must be aware of the nomination and be happy for you to share their details
400-word (maximum) supporting statement demonstrating how the nominee meets the criteria
Details for a secondary supporter of the nomination
The nomination form should articulate why you are nominating the person or team in question and make the case for why you think they should be acknowledged by the community via this award. The community panel will seek to understand what the nominee/s have done and how their work has made an impact.
Award timeline
- 16 June – nominations deadline
- End of July - Vitae ICE Awards community panel shortlists nominations based on criteria and the shortlist is announced
- Early August - Shortlisted nominees are interviewed remotely by the Vitae team to create short videos for the Award ceremony
- Mid-September - Vitae ICE Awards judging panel to select winner from shortlisted nominees
Would you like to be part of the shortlisting process? We are now accepting applications to the Vitae ICE Award community panel. Deadline to apply is 18 May 2023.
Award Criteria
Newcomer of the year
This award recognises someone early in their researcher development career who has made a significant contribution in their role in a short space of time.
Nominees may have:
- been proactive in engaging with their peers or colleagues to the benefit of researchers or others
- demonstrated an exceptional approach to their work, by coming up with novel solutions, ideas and initiatives
- had a positive impact on research culture and the researchers in their communities through their work
Outstanding contribution
This award seeks to recognise and celebrate someone who has made an outstanding contribution to researcher development, delivering a lasting and exceptional impact for their institution and/or the sector as a whole.
Nominees may have:
- played a key role in the researcher development community, leading positive change and delivering impact at an institutional, sector or strategy level
- advocated for the value of researcher development, working to influence policy on research culture or related issues
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developed programmes or initiatives that engage with and support fellow researcher development professionals
Innovative and inclusive practice
This award champions excellent practice within researcher development that demonstrates inventive approaches to complex challenges, and that contributes towards achieving equity of access to researcher development opportunities and support.
Nominations can be for individuals, groups of people or teams, and examples of practice may include:
- work that focuses on removing barriers of access
- creating welcoming spaces for collaboration
- work that takes an innovative approach to tackling complex issues, such as precarity
- engaging with the researcher development community to share examples of innovative and inclusive practice that can be applied more widely
Research culture impact through researcher development
This award aims to showcase activities or work within researcher development that has had a positive impact on improving research culture. Nominations can be for individuals, groups of people or teams, and initiatives can be at any scale, from institutional or sector level to smaller scale work focused, for example, on a particular group of researchers.
The award seeks to recognise examples which demonstrate how researcher development can act as a catalyst for change in research culture, including (but not limited to) the obligations outlined under the Environment and Culture principle of the Researcher Developer Concordat.
Examples may have already been submitted to The Concordat Platform of Practice and may include:
- innovations in the area of equality, diversity and inclusion
- the support of researchers wellbeing and mental health
- improving collegiality
- the facilitation of collaboration or the creation of communities, resulting in improvements to the research environment
