Do faculty research awards matter?

With the demands of teaching, research and service competing for space on an already heaping plate, setting aside time to explore possible awards and polish your CV might feel like a rainy-day activity during a drought. It can be a time-consuming process—and do those awards really matter to your career anyway?

According to an article in Science, the answer is yes. Simply the process of applying for awards and fellowships and vying for nomination means periodically focusing on your skills and career progress. Even if you don’t win the first time around, sometimes you receive valuable feedback that lets you know how you measure up against other scholars in your field. If you are fortunate enough to receive the award, it boosts your visibility and creates opportunities to pursue even more prestigious awards, adding to your perceived value, potential for promotion, and ability to garner grant funding to further your research.

Where do you begin? Let someone — your department chair, dean, or a colleague in your discipline — know you wish to be nominated for a research award. They will share that desire with the unit’s awards committee, and my office will work with them to suggest suitable awards for your career stage and research accomplishments, help identify nominators and ensure a strong application package, and track progress on the nomination.

If you are the chair or the dean, make it a priority to nominate researchers in your unit who are deserving of recognition. Remind them it’s often a requirement that membership dues be kept current, such as the four consecutive years of membership the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) requires for candidacy as a fellow.

Working together across campus, we’ll build a culture of faculty recognition that demonstrates KU is an institution that values and supports innovation and celebrates researchers who make discoveries that change the world.