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Academy of Social Sciences
Guidance on Making Nominations March 2009
Contents:
o Introduction
o Some examples of what constitutes excellence
o Making a nomination: the Process and Timetable
o Making a Nomination - some useful notes
o Specific Guidance for individual Academicians
o Specific Guidance for Learned Societies
Introduction
The Academy of Social Sciences
welcomes nominations for new Academicians from both Learned Societies
and individual Academicians. The paramount requirement for
successful nomination is a significant contribution to Social
Science and its promotion. This contribution can be in any
area, discipline or inter-disciplinary social science and can
include research, teaching, professional practice, consultancy
and the promotion and dissemination of social science knowledge.
With the development of the social sciences, there are new areas
and disciplines emerging, including ones which overlap with the
Arts and Humanities, and the environmental, medical, natural
or physical sciences. Those nominating new Academicians must
provide evidence of the contribution that the Nominee has made
and the ways in which this has been distinguished and significant,
including impact. The Academy has recently decided that members
may also be permitted from abroad so long as they can demonstrate
a strong continuing link with UK social science. This link must
be made clear in the case for nomination.
Some Examples of What Constitutes Excellence
The Academy recognises that
the assessment of excellence and whether an individual has made
a significant contribution is ultimately a judgement. The Nominations
Committee of the Academy will make this judgement in the context
of the evidence presented to it, the recommendation of the Proposer
and past decisions. It will also use standard peer review processes
(such as those developed by the Research Councils). People nominating
individuals for election might like to take the following into
account:
o Nominees must be people of
a suitable status and reputation.
o Excellent social science research and a strong publications
list would be strong components of a significant contribution
to the social sciences but should be augmented by contributions
of other kinds.
o Reaching a senior position, such as a Vice Chancellor, Director
of a Research Institute or a Company is not in itself
sufficient to warrant nomination. Such a nomination would need
to be accompanied by evidence of the ways in which the Nominee
has made a significant contribution to the social sciences during,
or before, holding this position.
o Individuals who are putting social science into practice professionally,
such as Psychologists, Family Therapist and Social and Market
Researchers could be considered to be making a significant contribution
if they developed innovative approaches and/or new research techniques,
and applied these to practice.
o Being a prime mover behind a major survey, particularly a continuous
or cohort survey, or a manager/administrator developing such
a survey on an ongoing basis, could be considered a significant
contribution.
o Individuals working in the public, commercial or voluntary
sectors could be considered to be making a significant contribution
if they demonstrated they were regular users of social science,
advocated its use to others and enhanced public understanding
or impact of social science.
o Contributions to the development of the social sciences by
people funding research in government, research councils and
charitable bodies could be seen as significant if they had, as
individuals:
o taken the lead in supporting and encouraging innovative work;
o assisted the creation of a strong infrastructure of professional
practice, such as ethical guidelines;
o promoted the benefits of social science to wider audiences;
or
o helped to embed findings from or impact of social science in
policy and practice.
o Communicators, in the media and elsewhere, could be seen to
have made a significant contribution if they make regular use
of social science knowledge, acknowledge and promote the findings
of social science research and enhance the public understanding
or impact of social science.
Making a Nomination - the
Process and Timetable
o There are separate
Nomination forms for Learned Societies and for Individual Academicians
to submit nominations. Both forms are available from the Academy
of Social Sciences office and can be downloaded from the Academy
website (www.acss.org.uk).
o The form must be accompanied by a short summary CV (no more
than 4 pages long).
o There are two nominations rounds each year (Winter and Summer)
and the closing dates for receipt of papers is given on the Academy
website, or can be obtained from the office. The dates are usually
in mid-December and late June.
o The Nominations Committee meets in January and July each year
and the dates of its meeting are published on the Academy Calendar,
available from the website.
o The Committee considers each case in light of the criteria
outlined above, and makes recommendations to Council of those
nominees who should have the award of Academician conferred on
them. Sometimes cases are referred back to their proposers for
further information and, occasionally, nominations are rejected,
although this does not preclude nomination at another date.
o The list of recommendations is considered by Council at its
next available meeting: usually in February for the winter round,
or September for the summer round.
o Following Council's ratification of the Nominations Committee's
recommendations the Chair of Council and Executive Director write
to all new Academicians with joining information. They also write
to inform their Vice Chancellors and the learned societies who
nominated them, where appropriate. A Press Release is issued
at the same time.
o New Academicians are welcomed and awarded their certificates
by the President of the Academy at the President's Lunch each
year and this is an opportunity for them to meet other Academicians.
A Summary of the Process
December or June -
all completed nominations forms received by the office
January or July - Nominations Committee meets to consider cases
February or September - Council considers recommendations from
Nominations Committee
March or October - list of new Academicians published
November - presentation of certificates to new Academicians at
President's Lunch
Making a Nomination - Some
Useful Notes
o Please ensure that
the most up to date version of the Nominations Form is used by
downloading it from the Academy website.
o Forms are sometimes received with very limited information
to support the nomination. In many cases an attempt to compensate
for this deficiency is made by supplying a lengthy CV with a
detailed publications list. This approach is unhelpful to the
members of the Nominations Committee, whose primary concern is
to understand the contribution to the advancement of social sciences
made by the Nominee, who may be working in a field or discipline
quite different to their own. This contribution cannot readily
be measured by the number of publications on the list and standard
CVs rarely emphasise the ways in which the individual contributes
to the advancement, enhancement or impact of the social sciences.
o Failure to provide a full rationale for the nomination is the
most frequent reason for a nomination to be unsuccessful and
the delays involved in seeking clarification can cause embarrassment
and inconvenience to all concerned. If there is any doubt about
the nature and level of information required, the Executive Director
is able to provide advice and, if necessary, to seek additional
guidance from the Chair of the Nominations committee, before
the application is submitted.
Specific Guidance for Individual
Academicians
An individual Academician
in good standing (i.e. whose subscription has been paid) may
nominate one person for election to the Academy per year, and
second two nominations. The Nominations Committee relies on Academicians
to refrain from nominating people who are their close relatives
or who are in the same department or research group within their
institution and, if necessary, to declare their interest. When
an Academician wishes to nominate a person from another department
in their own HEI it is essential that the nomination is
seconded by an Academician from another HEI or organisation.
The Nominations Committee is especially uncomfortable when Vice
Chancellors or Principals nominate staff of their own HEI because
election as an Academician is an Institutional Esteem measure
(and is now often used in the RAE or the future REF and by Research
Councils). It is preferable in this case for the Vice Chancellor
to suggest the individual as a potential Nominee to another Academician
who knows their work and to refrain from making or seconding
the nomination.
Specific Guidance for Learned
Societies
A Learned Society in
good standing as an Academy member has the right to submit up
to 10 nominations every year. These may be submitted as a single
batch to one meeting of the Nominations Committee.
The Academy Nominations Committee expects the Society to generate
its proposals for nomination in ways that satisfy the Society's
members and to take responsibility for the appropriateness
of its nominations. An example of good practice is the following:
The Society has adopted a standardised procedure for the nomination
of Academicians to ensure transparency and democracy. We advertise
annually via our Newsletter and email list for nominations from
the membership. Nominations are then discussed by a sub-group
of the officers of the Society's Governing Body and, finally,
papers are prepared for decision by the full Governing Body.
Other approaches could include a vote of all members, a decision
of the executive committee, or a decision of an ad hoc committee
of a society's current Academicians. Learned Societies must provide
a description of the selection process as part of the nomination
and the Academy of Social Sciences reserves the right to refuse
nominations that have not been through an appropriate selection
process.
No seconder is required for a Learned Society nomination, since
it is assumed that the Learned Society's nominee selection process
includes a rigorous scrutiny of the nominee's suitability to
become an Academician. However, where a Learned Society has not
carried out a peer review of its nominations, then the Nominations
Committee will arrange for one.
May 2008 - updated March 2009
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Sample Justification Statements
for Learned Society Nominations
Practitioner Example 1
Originally a town planner x has had a long career in the
practical applications of a broad range of social science research
to practical situations both within government at the then DOE,
as CEO of a public body and latterly as the principal of a small
research management consultancy. This has led to extensive work
within central and local government as well as the 3rd Sector.
In all these sectors she is very well regarded for her commitment
to social research and particularly her appreciation of the importance
of full engagement with social research users and the use of
innovative methods of knowledge transfer.
X has also specialised
in policy issues around the development of quality social science
based social research and been used as a policy adviser to good
effect by bodies such as the British Academy and ESRC and ARCISS.
She has used her applied experience to train social researchers
on project management and evidence based policy work as well
as dissemination and was one of the first to offer this type
of training outside government. Her CV gives a fuller account
of the range of her activities and publications. The Association
wishes to nominate X to the Academy as an example of someone
who has contributed significantly to the public advancement of
social research.
Practitioner Example 2
The Learned Society
Y wishes to nominate X who is currently the National
Z and chief Executive of The Office of Important
Things. We regard him as one of the outstanding social scientists
of her generation working outside academia which he has done
for nearly 40 years. Originally a sociologist working in health
and related fields he has spent the greater part of his career
in what was the Office of Constitutional Affairs and became
the Office of Important Things, moving through research
based posts as a social survey officer to leading the whole organisation.
His publications have been extensive and diverse, reflecting
the nature of the many different social research areas he has
contributed to. Some of the studies have been path breaking in
their methodological innovations e.g. an early study on Family
Formation and, throughout his research work and subsequently,
he has shown a continued commitment to analyse through a social
science lens. In addition to his professional work X has
been an active member of the social science community though
his engagement with and activity in a number of professional
bodies notably the ABS, CBA, especially its medical section and
the ZYX. He has been honoured for his work by a number of organisations
as his CV below shows.
Academic Example 1
Professor X has forged a high and distinctive profile over many
years in several cognate respects:
1. He works across an unusually broad range of interrelated themes
linking Subject X, Y Studies and cognate social and environmental
sciences, making substantive contributions to them all, as reflected
in the titles of his books, chapters and journal articles. He
is one of a very few social scientists to have published in the
major world-class Geography, Development Studies, African Studies
and interdisciplinary journals and also those in environmental
science such as Title A, Title B and Title C.
His co-edited 2008 book,
XYZ represents an innovative benchmark in holistic research
into XYZ, adopting a systems approach integrating a, b, c and
social sciences. This is the flagship output of a 4.5 year European
Commission-funded project, involving partners in 8 European and
Asian countries and of which he was social science leader and
overall co-ordinator.
His systematic research
interests include development theory, policy and practice; the
development-environment interface; urbanisation and global environmental
change; sustainability; and transport and regional and national
development planning.
2. He has a successful record of competitive grant-funded research,
most notably from the European Commission (see above) and DFID,
as well as the British Academy and Nuffield Foundation, totalling
some £XYZk since 1990. He is currently publishing the results
of an innovative and acclaimed ethnographic project on XYZ in
the evolving post-World War II field of development studies.
The first major paper (18k words) has just appeared in JOURNAL
title; work is commencing this summer on a monograph as principal
output.
3. He is a very effective public communicator and works tirelessly
at the interface between theory, policy and practice at all scales
from the local community grassroots to the world stage. He has
acted as consultant and expert advisor to various international
agencies (including the European Commission, UN, XYZ), to the
XYZ government and business briefing services and individual
clients. Since 2007 he has been advising XYZ on integrating global
environmental change/climate change into its work programme and
chaired the launch conference of its XYZ Initiative in Oslo in
DATE; he will also assist them at the crucial XYZ Conference
on Climate Change in DATE, at which the successor to the Kyoto
Protocol will be finalised. Earlier this year he also moderated
2 sessions on XYZ during the UN Economic Commission for Europe's
69th Session in Geneva. These involved environment ministers
and ambassadors from member states as well as outside specialists.
He has also been a regular
commentator on PLACE on BBC Radio and World Service radio and
TV, and has written for various newspapers, popular magazines
and business briefing services. He currently serves on the XYZ
Committee of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change
core project of the International Human Dimensions Programme
on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), and is chair of the UK
National Committee on XYZ.
4. Research and Academic leadership: He has an extensive record
of contributions in the various areas of his interests and engagements
- as detailed in the CV.
Outside academia, he is a trustee and executive member of the
XYZ Trust for PLACE; and a past chair of his local Amnesty International
group.
Academic Example 2
Professor Y's contributions
to SUBJECT and the development of the environmental social sciences
have resulted from: 1. Creation of a research agenda which has
addressed important questions about the production, circulation
and consumption of environmental discourses. In the 1980s, through
a number of theoretically informed, empirical studies, he was
the first human geographer to take seriously the importance of
contact with nature in people's everyday lives, and to ask questions
about how those embodied experiences resonated with different
kinds of knowledge circulating through the mass media and other
forms of popular culture. Together with his colleague AB, he
brought the concept of 'social constructions of nature' into
geography and showed how and why it is important in understanding
conflicts between experts, policy-makers and lay publics. These
perspectives have been taken up not only in geography but also
in environmental politics and environmental sociology over the
last two decades.
2. Developing, demonstrating, and defending in a range of policy
contexts, the importance of qualitative methodologies in helping
to articulate social values for different environments. He pioneered
small group research in geography (and beyond) during the 1980s
and the enormous escalation of focus group research in the last
two decades was due, in some part, to his research and publications.
During the 1990s, he led research which questioned the assumption
made by environmental economists and policy-analysts that all
classes of XYZ values could be monetised and included in standard
cost-benefit analyses. His empirical research, which was widely
taken up in Europe, demonstrated that the responses to contingent
valuation surveys were, in many cases, an artefact of the method
rathis than a valid economic measure. The research raised fundamental
challenges for environmental decision-makers seeking more legitimate
processes for making difficult decisions. His work over the last
decade has been experimenting with a number of novel, innovative
'analytic-deliberative' decision processes, always within live
policy contexts.
3. Willing acceptance of offers to participate in helping environmental
policy-makers. Examples are in the CV. Of specific note, are
his roles as Special Advisor to the House of Commons XYZ committee
enquiry in DATE; and the new DEFRA XYZ task force, where his
role is to ensure non-quantifiable cultural values are properly
recognised in the Assessment (something which the XYZ Assessment
failed to do).
4. His other long-term interests are in the field of 'sustainable
consumption', seeking to understand how individuals, households
and communities relate to discourses of environmental risk, especially
climate change. Working with colleagues and a number of graduate
students, and playing a major role on the Board of the environmental
charity XYZ, he has contributed to a more contextualised understanding
of pro-environmental behaviour change. This work is continuing
through engagement with Transitions theory and, in particular,
the social dimensions of innovation adoption in the energy field.
5. A major contribution to the social sciences nationally and
internationally, has been is in postgraduate supervision. He
has supervised 35 PhDs, primary supervisor for 30 of them, to
a successful completion. As noted in his CV, 5 of them are now
full professors, and a further 21 are in academic careers.
Professor Y has also been
on the ABC Board of ESRC for the last x years and has
played a very active role in helping shape the environmental
agenda of the council, plus cross-council initiatives such as
energy and Living with Environmental Change.
6. He is Head of the UK's largest School of XYZ, with more than
70% of the research outputs assessed at 4* /3*, and x staff,
with y faculty and research staff across the full range
of natural and social sciences. This includes 21 geographers,
economists, sociologists and political scientists.
Academic Example 3
Professor Z, Faculty
of Social Sciences, University X.
In a career spanning thirty
years at University X, Professor Z has contributed to the advancement
of the Social Sciences through the publication of twelve books,
of which four are research publications and eight are teaching
texts (including translations in Chinese and Greek). Of the research
publications, the greatest impact has been Title (Blackwell,
2003), which advanced a spatial account of the x, adding a geographical
dimension to the Social Sciences literature on x. This has been
recognised widely through reviews, keynote contributions and
invited lectures, and more specifically through invited contributions
to Title and the social science interdisciplinary journal
TITLE.
The co-published teaching
texts, in both Geography and Sociology, are used extensively
in COUNTRY NAMES, and continue to influence and shape the Social
Science curriculum in general, and Geography in particular.
His reputation includes
invitations to deliver major public lectures (XYZ Annual Public
Lecture, 2006); international lectures (Switzerland DATES; Germany
DATE, Sweden 200x); and keynote addresses (Nordic Symposium in
XYZ, 2001; XYZ Annual Conference, 2004; Geografie e Ambienti,
(Italy 20xx). Professor Z is on The Expert Panel XYZ COUNTRY
Research Council and the panels for the 2007 and 2009 XYZ
Prize in Geography. His visiting appointments include professorships
at the Universities of XYZ.
His journal contributions
have, over time, reached beyond Geography to include TITLE
A, TITLE B, TITLE C, TITLE D and the Journal of X,
as part of a broader conversation with other Social Science Disciplines.
Academic Example 4
Dr A's research and
teaching has been dedicated to feminist social and urban x
since the 1970s. He was one of the key founding members of
the XYZ Study Group which established and demonstrated the importance
of gendered social processes to geographical understanding during
the late 1970s and early 1980s.
His research reflects three
overlapping academic and policy concerns: x and y; the links
between a and b, race and disability; and c. He has
produced significant research outputs in the substantive areas
of: a, b and c. He has, for example, recently completed funded
research projects on social inclusion and exclusion within brownfield
development and on the place of 'care' within employing organisations.
He is now engaging in research on the place of children in the
planning of 'new build' gentrification. His latest project addresses
the links between x and y. He received his PhD from University
x in the United States and has maintained links with scholars
in the USA, presenting many papers at the US Association of xyz
annual conferences.
Throughout his career he
has been active in promoting and leading feminist research in
x and encouraging the teaching of feminist x in postgraduate
and undergraduate courses and in schools. He has been particularly
concerned with the development of postgraduate training in x,
having successfully supervised 20 PhD students.
He has created effective
links between his research and practice within and beyond the
academy. For example, he became President of X, represented the
University on the Boards of Y and Z and served for several years
on the Board of Charity name. He has played a significant
role in the growth and development of Charity - a highly
innovative bus service for people who cannot use ordinary public
transport, and has chaired its Board for nearly a decade.
In sum, Dr A's career is
an admirable example of a committed, effective and grounded social
scientist who has i) carried out innovative research at the cutting
edge of gender, race, disability and care, ii) put research into
practice through his engagement with practical action in the
community, and iii) trained the next generation of x.
Academic Example 5
Professor B: key achievements
o Internationally recognised research into XYZ;
o Holder of two ESRC grants into XYZ and author
of two books and numerous articles on the subject;
o Editor of two books on the regeneration of
PLACE and founder of Title journal;
o Co-edited (with abc) the first significant
collection on XYZ (1995) and, more recently (2007), authored
(with def) well-received book on GHI;
o Current work on the XYZ and its relationship
to social class and ethnic change is generating considerable
cross disciplinary interest - a book on this (with JKL) is due
to be published in 2010;
o Editorial board member and subsequently chair
of Journal Title;
o Board member of Research Committee X of
the International Y Association;
o Trustee of the Foundation XYZ and treasurer
designate;
Professor B's background is interdisciplinary across the social
sciences and humanities with degrees in sociology, social history
and human geography; he has worked both in a sociology and a
geography department (University of X 19xx-20xx- Professor of
Sociology; University Y 200x onwards - Professor of Geography).
His work has been empirically focused on the changing class structure
of London with a longstanding interest in social change in PLACE.
He has charted the progress of XYZ; his most recent work has
been concerned with inter-relationships between social class
change, ethnic change and residential mobility in PLACE. This
has led into a growing emphasis in the role of education and
how schooling choice interacts with housing markets. His empirically
grounded work has led some theoretically important insights into
processes of urban social change - for example, his notion of
a XYZ drawing on ABC's work.
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