Research Excellence Award

• UFV Type B faculty
• Sessional faculty with the equivalent of two years of teaching (accumulation of 14 sections)
• Students
• Alumni
• Staff
• University officers

For definitions of positions, please refer to the Senate Bylaws (p.11).

Eligible nominees must currently hold one of the following positions:

• All UFV Type B faculty, including lab instructors, who have completed their probational period
• Sessional faculty after the equivalent of two years of teaching (accumulation of 14 sections)

Research Excellence Award (REA) candidates are evaluated on the following four criteria. These are baseline expectations which the award recipient must meet.

Emphasis will be placed on work accomplished as a member of the UFV community, but achievements within the past five years that were achieved elsewhere will be considered. Nominees’ research/creative endeavours will be assessed based on the following four criteria, relative to the discipline. The following are descriptive attributes of the main criteria:

Originality/innovation

• Uniqueness or transformative nature of work
• Patents or monetary gains produced from work
• Awards, recognition from work
• Initiation of new programs

Academic impact/influence within the discipline

• Reception of work among peers within researcher’s discipline (reviews, stature of journals in which work was published, awards, etc.)
• Profile of outputs (journal rankings, etc.)
• Record in securing funding from external sources
• Numbers of citations from work
• Membership in discipline-specific groups
• Reviews of discipline-specific works

UFV/community impact/influence/scope of research/creative activity

• Impact/significance of the work for the UFV community, stakeholder groups, institutional profile, community at large, including Indigenization and Internationalization, etc.
• Public demonstrations, showings, lectures, presentations of work
• Utility/use of research/creative outputs to community groups
• Securing internal funding from UFV
• Membership in community/national/international groups
• Press statements regarding work

Mentorship/interface of research and teaching

• Role and/or training for students in relation to work or while conducting work in research
• Role for students in conduct of faculty research
• Incorporation of creativity/research achievement/ knowledge of research into the learning environment and pedagogy
• Evidence of student research accomplishments and testimonials

The nomination package must consist of all of the following:

• A letter of nomination outlining how the nominee meets the criteria for the Research Excellence Award (maximum 1,000 words):
  • The nominator is responsible for describing the nominee's work in relation to his or her particular discipline in language which the multidisciplinary committee adjudicating this award can comprehend.
  • This letter should lay out the broader research/creative program of the nominee over the previous five years.
  • It should also highlight any outstanding creative or research achievement[s] in that same time period. Nominators will provide a description of the nominee’s research / creative endeavor, emphasizing how it meets the four criteria and related descriptive attributes, as outlined in the Evaluation Criteria. The researcher’s role in any joint/multi-disciplinary projects should be clearly outlined.
• A nominator form, signed by the nominator, indicating their eligibility type.
• Exactly five letters of support must be included (500 words maximum). The nominator is responsible for soliciting letters of support from outside the UFV community. The nominee may suggest a list of colleagues from whom it would be suitable to solicit letters of support:
  • Two letters should come from recognized scholars specializing in a similar field of research/creative endeavour who can speak to the quality and significance of the nominee's work in the field.
  • Up to two additional letters may also come from non-academic sources who have a connection to, and comprehension of, the research/creative activity being nominated (i.e. government agencies, industry, community partners), or a former/current student who has experienced the nominees’ incorporation of research into the classroom.
  • A letter of support cannot come from the nominator.
• A current curriculum vitae of the nominee, highlighting his or her research/creative productivity over the previous five years, and not exceeding five pages.
• A consent form signed by the nominee agreeing to be nominated.

The Research Excellence Award (REA) selection committee, a subcommittee of the Senate Research Committee, is responsible for receiving nominations and recommending a recipient for the award. The Senate Awards and Honours Committee reviews the documentation to ensure procedural requirements have been met, before recommending the recipient to Senate for approval.‌