Research Insights

It’s fall, and that means it’s time once again to nominate our students and fellow faculty members for their exemplary research, teaching and service through UGA’s internal awards programs. It’s also a great time to consider nominating individuals for external awards. These opportunities are an excellent way to recognize and promote colleagues and mentees who are doing truly outstanding work.

In recent years, UGA’s Research Awards have grown to recognize a broader range of research and the many investigators engaged in them. We have created new awards for team science and for research communications, as well as for non-tenure-track researchers. Each of these recognizes the kinds of activity we want to promote. We want you to think BIG, leveraging UGA’s immense breadth of disciplines to realize the highest impact. We want you to work with UGA’s communications professionals to tell the world about your successes. And we want to recognize a wide range of researchers and innovators for their efforts.

UGA’s Research Awards, along with our teaching and service awards, are also important stepping stones for major national and international external awards, which not only help advance individual faculty careers but are well-deserved honors that are very important to enhance UGA’s scholarly reputation and recognition.

There are many paths to receiving external awards. One way to get started is to join professional organizations in your field and start a dialogue with your colleagues, department chairs and deans. Through these conversations, be sure to communicate to them award opportunities that become available to you and solicit their suggestions.

Award nomination dossiers are often vetted by broad review panels, including non-experts, and it’s critical the content be prepared in a rigorous—but also accessible—way. One essential and sometimes overlooked element of a successful nomination is a well-written, comprehensive and convincing nomination letter—typically provided by a dean or department head—that can be fully appreciated not just by peers but by well-informed laypeople.

Earlier this month we held a Research Live webinar to explore best practices for compiling effective nomination packages. Hosted by Associate Vice President Shelley Hooks and Assistant Director Jessica Farmer from the Office of Research Personnel and Internal Grants & Awards, the discussion also featured faculty administrators with strong histories of supporting successful faculty nominations: Nate Nibbelink (associate dean for research, Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources); Denise Spangler (dean, Mary Frances Early College of Education); and Mike Tiemeyer (joint director, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and Center for Molecular Medicine). The session was recorded, so if you weren’t able to attend, you can still watch it online.

The Nov. 1 deadline for UGA Research Award nominations to the Office of Research is fast approaching. Thank you for your efforts in providing the best possible slate of nominees. I look forward to recognizing our research honorees next spring during Honors Week. Taking time to recognize the diversity and excellence of our researchers and innovators along the entire career spectrum is imperative and exciting.

Whether a nominee or nominator, please know you are greatly appreciated—my thanks for all you do for the UGA research enterprise.

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research