Travelling Fellowship Award Committee terms of reference
Membership
In order to ensure transparency and to allow for wider involvement of the Fellowship, Committee membership for all awards will be for three years only, with approximately one third of the members retiring each year (on 31 December). In the case of newly formed committees, such retirements will begin at the end of the second year.
A Chair will normally have already served on the Award Committee as a member for at least one year and their maximum term as Chair will be for two years - so that their membership term does not extend beyond five years. For biennial awards, years of membership are up to three award rounds (six years) for members – with the maximum years for a Chair’s term being two award rounds (up to four years). There will be a minimum break of two award rounds before a member can re-join a committee.
To safeguard the Academy’s real and perceived independence in decision making, donors or those with a close personal connection to an award (such as an award’s namesake or their family members), may not be members of the relevant award’s committee. Such individuals are also asked to refrain from acting as a referee for candidates for that award.
Award Committee members are unable to nominate or apply for an award or act as a referee for a candidate, for consideration by the committee that they are sitting on. Council members are not eligible to nominate or apply for Academy awards during their term and for two years after they leave Council.
Award timeframes
Travelling Fellowship award nominations and applications are due by 1 June each year. Award Committee deliberations are to be finalised and written recommendations and reports sent to the Secretariat by 1 August. Recommendations will then be submitted to EXCOM in August for approval.
Committee deliberations
All members are expected to undertake unconscious bias training. Council and The Secretaries will determine the nature of this training each year.
The Academy is committed to promoting diversity of, for example, gender, ethnicity, age, geographical distribution and scientific disciplines, and to the principles of inclusion, equal opportunity, fairness and transparency in its policies and procedures.
Unconscious bias often manifests as prejudice or unsupported judgments. It is considered to be universally present, and often escapes detection because it is not applied consciously.
The purpose of unconscious bias training is to help Committee members recognize its existence and forms, and the influence it can have on decision-making processes, with a view to mitigating its effects on selection processes.
Current training is provided though the Academy’s unconscious bias training video, which Committee members are requested to view prior to stating their nomination assessments (45 minutes).
Members of each Award Committee are also encouraged to watch the Royal Society video on avoiding group think.
Applicants can only receive funding from the same research or travelling fellowship award once in a three calendar year period. Applicants may apply for more than one award but can only receive one Academy travelling or research award per calendar year.
If a candidate applies for two or more research or travelling fellowship awards, the chairs of these committees will be alerted to the fact and will be charged to communicate with each other to ensure that the awardee only receives the one award. Their assessment will be based on their determination of the quality of the other applicants in that round. If an applicant for two awards is the top ranked candidate for both awards, the chairs will recommend a single award that best benefits the research/career of that candidate.
Committee members will ensure that they are satisfied that proposals comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. Research involving Indigenous Australians must comply with the guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies. Any concerns must be reported to the Academy for further clarification or resolution either at the application or pre-award stage.
Conflict of interest
The first task of the Committee before any assessment or ranking takes place is for committee Chairs to ask for and collect declarations of conflicts of interest from all committee members and forward this information to the Secretariat. When identifying conflicts of interest, committee members should use the following as a guide to direct and indirect conflicts. The Secretariat will provide Chairs with a spreadsheet for members to complete and will keep a record of declarations.
To reduce the risk of conflicts of interest, award committee members are asked to refrain from nominating, or acting as a referee, for candidates for awards that fall under their committee’s remit. All conflicts, real or perceived, must be declared in the member’s conflict-of-interest report sent to the Chair and Secretariat.
Members with direct conflicts of interest must abstain from assessing (i.e. discussing and scoring) candidates, but may respond to queries about the candidates’ science, if asked.
Indirect conflicts will be assessed by the committee Chair to determine if an indirect or potential conflict is significant enough to warrant a member absenting from assessing a candidate in part (e.g. scoring but not discussing) or in full.
Committees with Chairs that have declared any direct or indirect conflicts of interest are requested to copy the relevant Side-Secretary into all committee deliberations.
At the relevant Side-Secretary’s discretion an independent third-party assessor may be brought in to assist such committees at any point of the deliberations. They would join as either an additional member of the committee with full voting rights and normal tenure, or as a non-voting observer for one year.
A direct conflict of interest is defined as a close personal or professional relationship with the candidate. An indirect conflict of interest is defined as relationships that could create bias. Refer to the Fellowship nominations conflicts of interest guidelines for examples.
Perceived conflicts of interest are important to the reputation of the Academy and in some jurisdictions have the same standing as actual conflicts of interest. As such, the number of exceptions to these guidelines approved by the Side-Secretaries will be minimised.
Confidentiality
All material relating to candidates is strictly confidential and must not be shared with anyone. Following the deliberations, all electronic material must be deleted from personal devices and printed material and notes securely destroyed or returned to the Awards office. The deliberations remain confidential, even after the awarding of candidates.
Consideration of candidates
Committee members will ensure that gender and diversity issues are taken into consideration when considering candidates for awards.
The Secretariat will organise a web conference for the committee to discuss the award applications. Aside from this Secretariat-organised meeting, chairs will determine how their committee will conduct its deliberations, for example via electronic means.
Committees are requested to ensure that candidate achievements are judged relative to opportunity. The approach aims to give more weight to the overall quality and impact of achievements rather than the quantity, rate or breadth of particular achievements, which in many instances is directly related to time and resources available rather than talent, merit or excellence. An assessment of a candidate’s opportunity to demonstrate scientific excellence will take into account the factors below, based on the Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence (ROPE) guidelines of the Australian Research Council (ARC).
- Research training; employment in research positions, either within the research sector or outside academia, including the research component and/or full-time-equivalence of positions; research and development activities; industry engagement; research environment, including supervision, mentoring and leadership; professional development; research management experience, and access to research and support facilities.
Career interruptions- including those due to employment outside academia; unemployment, part-time employment; childbirth; parental leave; carers’ responsibilities; misadventure; limited or no access to facilities and resources—such as through workplace interruptions; disaster management and recovery; misadventure; medical conditions; disability; caring and parental responsibilities, community obligations, including Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander cultural practices and protocols or illness.
In general, Award Committees should attempt to achieve a consensus with respect to the awardee to be recommended to Council. Where this is not possible, the matter should be resolved by a formal vote. In the event of the number of votes for any two candidates being equal, the Chair would exercise a casting vote. When a vote is used to decide the outcome of the Committee’s deliberations, the actual distribution of the votes should be recorded in the Chair’s report to Council.
Committees can recommend that there be no award made in that round if there is consensus that there isn’t a sufficiently strong candidate.
Chair's report to council
The Secretariat will provide a report template for chairs to complete. Chairs will provide the Awards Officer with a brief summary (one page) of the deliberations of the Committee, how many applications were received, the final decision and why the candidate is being proposed to Council for the award, by 5 September. The report should also include the completed register of conflicts of interest (and how conflicts were dealt with) and any recommended changes to the award or to the selection process.
New members
As part of its recommendations to Council, the Award Committee should advise on optimum disciplinary makeup of the committee for replacement committee members.
The Secretaries Physical and Biological Sciences will review the interest received from individual Fellows to sit on award committees and the Committee recommendations regarding disciplinary makeup and select new members and Chairs as guided by the following selection principles, presenting these to Council Annually out of session for record and oversight:
- Annually the Fellowship will be consulted on their availability for Award and Sectional committees.
- The member expertise across each Awards Committee will endeavour to cover the fields of the candidates relevant to that committee
- When nominations close, new members will be added to any Awards Committee if the Secretaries consider that expertise is lacking or that conflicts would inhibit the committee in ranking particular candidates
- The membership of each Awards Committee, within the conditions of that Award, and where possible will reflect appropriate geographical spread, gender and ethnic diversity as guided by and in accordance with the principles provided by the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DIACOM).
- The Secretaries will also consider members outside of the award discipline for Award committees, including corresponding members of the Academy and Fellows of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
- The Secretaries will aim to have a minimum of 5 members appointed on each Award Committee.
- The DIACOM representative on Council will be tasked to record and feedback to the Secretaries any equity and diversity matters observed in relation to the awards and where shown in the annual award committee reports presented to Council.
- When appropriate Early and Mid-Career Researchers and previous awardees of an Award will be considered for award committee membership, as well as Fellows of other National Academies and non-Fellows with particular expertise.
