Policy, Guidelines, and Procedures for Awards and Lectureships

 

  1. General

 

The following general principles apply to IAUC awards and lectureships.

 

1. All final decisions on the creation of an award or lectureship—its purposes, terms of reference, and conditions—and on award and lectureship recipients, are made by the IAUC Board.

 

2. Awards and lectureships are to be maintained at the highest level.  While an award winner or lecturer may be chosen annually (or at some other designated interval), it may often be more suitable to present the award only occasionally, and an award committee or panel should not hesitate to not give an award in  a year when there is no outstanding nominee.  Justification is required if, in an exceptional case, a multiple award is recommended to the Board.

 

3. With the exception of student awards, awards and lectureships (if they are created) will be solely in the form of medals, plaques, certificates, etc., and not in the form of cash or cash equivalent.

 

4. All awards and lectureships will be considered for renewal or termination by the Board every eight years beginning 1 January 2005.

 

B. Establishing Awards/Lectureships

 

1. Awards and lectureships are established only when there is clear justification.

 

2. Awards and lectureships may be named or unnamed.

 

3. Awards and lectureships are named only for deceased members of the urban climate community who are deserving of such recognition.

 

4. A proposal for a new award or lectureship may be submitted to the President of the IAUC by any member or group of the Association.  The proposal, not to exceed five pages in length, shall include sufficient background and justification indicating, for example, that the pool of potential awardees is large enough to justify the new award or lectureship.  Additional letters of support from relevant portions of the affected community will be welcome.  The proposal shall also include suggested Terms of Reference and the method for selection of awardees.

 

5. Proposals for a new award or lectureship will be reviewed by the IAUC Awards Committee.  When appropriate, this group will request input and comments from other segments of the Association.

 

6. The IAUC Awards committee will recommend a course of action to the Board.

 

C. Award and Lecturer Nomination Procedure

 

1. Nominations may be submitted to the Chair of the IAUC Awards committee by any member or group of the Association.  Exact details of the nomination procedure will be specified for each award.

 

2. The nomination must include a proposed citation and a condensed curriculum vitae.  Up to three additional letters of support may be submitted with the nomination.

 

3. Nominations will be active for three years, and updated information may be submitted for consideration in the second and third years.

 

D. Selection Procedures

 

All awards and lectureships are approved by the Board.  Selection procedures will be specified for each award.  These will be approved by the Board.

 

E. Policy on Named Conferences/Symposia and Special Issues of Journals

 

Recognition of scientists in the Urban Climate field, living or deceased, in the form of a named conference or symposium, or of a named special issue of a journal, is an honor reserved for only the most outstanding of our colleagues.  It should be awarded only to those individuals who are completing a career, or who have recently died having completed a career, of significant achievements in their field.

 

Proposals for either a named conference/symposium or special issue, including the nature of the content for the conference/symposium or special issue that justifies its naming, from any member or group of the Association should be submitted to the President of the Board for consideration by the Board.  Final approval lies with the Board.

 

F. Guidelines for memorials.

 

A memorial is defined as a gift, award, publication, or activity accepted or created by action of the IAUC for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of a person or group of persons.

 

1. Memorials shall be established by action of the Board.

 

2. Memorials shall normally be established only for nonliving persons.  There shall be no exclusions based on membership in the IAUC, nationality, race, religion, or sex.

 

3. Memorials shall satisfy both of the following criteria:

a) The accomplishments and ideals of the person being memorialized shall have been such as to advance the study of urban climate.

b) The objective of the memorial, be it an award, scholarship, publication, or other activity, shall be such as to advance the aims of the IAUC.

 

4. Memorials shall be considered in two categories: designated and undesignated.

a) Designated memorials are normally established for a specified object in such a way as to memorialize an individual or group of individuals.  If the memorial is in the nature of a periodic payment or award, sufficient capital will normally be provided to fund the award over the stated duration of the memorial.

b) Undesignated memorial gifts may be accepted by the IAUC to be used in ways and for purposes to be determined by the Board, including the amalgamation of several such memorials for a specific purpose.

 

5. The designation of memorials to provide scholarships for the assistance of students pursuing appropriate courses of study at academic institutions is encouraged.

 

6. The use of memorial funds to publish a special volume or monograph is encouraged.

 

 


The IAUC Awards Committee

 

The IAUC Awards Committee will recommend to the IAUC Board up to one person to receive the annual IAUC Luke Howard Award for continued significant contributions to the field of urban climate.  It will also organize a sub-committee to run a student competition at ICUC meetings, prepare a section on the IAUC web page summarizing its activities, and report to the Board on its activities.

 

The Committee will consist of five persons, with no more than one person from any country (based on their current or last professional affiliation).  The five members will include both the current and next chairs, the latter a committee member who will have served one full year before their term as chair will begin.  Members will normally serve a three-year term and cannot serve two consecutive terms.  The IAUC Board will select new members each year to replace those rotated off, i.e., 1-3 new members will be needed, depending on year.  For the initial committee, the Board will designate the first and second chairs, who will serve three year terms.  The Board will identify one remaining initial committee member to serve only a one year term and two to serve only two year terms.  This will allow new members to rotate onto the Committee in a timely manner.


IAUC Awards

 

IAUC Luke Howard Award for outstanding contributions to the field of urban climatology

 

The Luke Howard Award will be given annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of urban climatology in a combination of research, teaching, and/or service to the international community of urban climatologists.  The IAUC Awards committee will recommend to the IAUC Board the recipient of this award.  The IAUC Awards committee can elect not to give an award in a given year.

 

Luke Howard Award Nomination Process

 

Nomination materials will be collected by a nomination coordinator, i.e., the first person who notifies the chair of the IAUC Awards Committee that a particular person will be nominated.  No self nominations are permitted and current Awards Committee members cannot be nominated.  The coordinator will collect the following documentation: three-page candidate-CV and three two-page letters of recommendation from IAUC members from at least two different countries.

 

Luke Howard Award Schedule

 

1 October: Complete nomination packets (single electronic submission) due to Committee chair

 

1 November: Committee votes and Chair forwards nominee’s packet (electronically) to Board

 

1 December: Board makes decision and announces winner

 

Student Paper Awards

 

The IAUC Awards Committee Chair will select a sub-committee of five IAUC members, designating a chair, who will review student (oral and poster) presentations at a given ICUC meeting.  The committee will then select winners (e.g. first, second, and third place), whose names will be announced at the end of the meeting.  All winners will receive a certificate describing their achievement.

 

 

The Japan Prize

 

The Japan Prize honors researchers from developing countries who are judged to have given the best papers at an ICUC conference.

 

The awards are made possible by Professor Y. Nakamura and seven of his colleagues from Japan.

 

Amount of Award: $1000(US) for each recipient

Number of Awards: Maximum of three for each International Conference on Urban Climate. The awards will not be ranked.

Decision: To be made by a sub-committee of the Awards Committee.

Eligibility: Any researcher from a developing country (based on current country of residence/professional affiliation) presenting a paper at a ICUC conference. The definition of developing countries will follow definitions by the WMO.

Announcements: Announcements of the Award and the Recipients will be made through the IAUC Newsletter and UrbClim email list

 

The William P. Lowry Memorial Awards

 

These awards are made possible by the sons of William (Bill) P. Lowry: Samuel C. Lowry and Porter P. Lowry II, September, 2005.

 

Scope and Aims

 

Three cash awards, including two prizes for presentations and one travel assistance award, to be made in conjunction with the (approximately) triennial, international IAUC meetings.

 

The IAUC Awards Committee and the sons of the late Prof. William P. Lowry offer the awards to honor Prof. Lowry's lifetime contributions to the fields of urban climatology and bioclimatology, and to encourage, celebrate, and modestly support outstanding and pertinent work.

 

The particular groups targeted - graduate students in urban bioclimatology, climate methodologists, and climatology graduate students from Africa - are considered foremost among those reflecting Prof. Lowry's intellectual interests and personal loves.

 

Funding

 

Funding will be provided from the William P. Lowry Memorial Fund, established in the year 2000 under the auspices of the Missouri Botanical Garden using private contributions and revenue from ongoing sales of Prof. Lowry's three principal textbooks, Fundamentals of Biometeorology (Vols. 1 and 2) and Atmospheric Ecology for Designers and Planners.

 

The Awards

 

1.       The William P. Lowry Graduate Student Prize is a cash award of $200 made to the student author/presenter of the best oral presentation (or poster) in urban biometeorology/bioclimatology presented at the IAUC meetings by a graduate student. The winner will be judged during the course of the meetings by an ad hoc committee of three, appointed by the IAUC Awards Committee (or by the appropriate IAUC standing committee).

Ordinarily the prize will go to a paper that is also the subject of an oral presentation. However, the ad hoc committee may elect to award the prize to the author/presenter of a poster or other non-oral presentation, if they judge the work to be the most deserving.

The single work selected for this prize may be judged to be the most significant, innovative, seminal, groundbreaking, intellectually exemplary, and/or integrative among those eligible.

2.       The William P. Lowry Methodology Prize is a cash award of $200 made to the author/presenter of a paper (or poster) presented at the IAUC meetings that incorporates the best conceptual or experimental methodology.

The winner may be either a student or an established professional (with preference going to a student if two or more presentations are judged equally worthy); the system of judging is the same as that for the Graduate Student Prize, above.

The single work selected for this prize must be judged to use the best conceptual or experimental methodology among those eligible.

3.       The William P. Lowry African Student Travel Award is a cash award of $300 to help defray travel expense to the IAUC meetings for a graduate student traveling from the continent of Africa.  In the absence of a suitable candidate from Africa, the award may be made to a student from a similarly challenged region.

The recipient will be selected during the meeting registration process by an ad hoc committee appointed by the IAUC Awards Committee (or by the appropriate IAUC standing committee).

The award will be made to the first eligible applicant to register for the meetings who, in the committee's judgment, demonstrates a need for the support.

The committee will notify the recipient of the award and encourage the recipient to use the award to seek matching travel support from other sponsors.

 

Administration

 

All three William P. Lowry Memorial Awards will be made directly to the recipients, in cash, at the meetings. Awards will not be made to academic or other institutions on behalf of the recipients.

 

In advance of the meetings, Administrators of the Lowry Memorial Fund will arrange for the Missouri Botanical Garden to send a check for the total amount of the three awards ($700) to an appropriate IAUC officer designated by the IAUC Awards Committee (or by the appropriate IAUC standing committee). The check will be made payable to the designated IAUC officer, who will cash the check, and will arrange to have the awards presented to the recipients at the time of the IAUC meetings.

 

Winners of all awards will also receive a set of Prof. Lowry's three textbooks (titles mentioned above), which will be provided to the designated IAUC officer prior to the IAUC meetings.

 

Once the recipients have been selected, IAUC will send notification to the Administrators of the Lowry Memorial Fund (Samuel C. Lowry and Porter P. Lowry II) indicating the names of the recipients, their professional contacts, the title of the winning presentations (for Prizes I and II), and any other information deemed pertinent. Photos of the award presentations would be greatly appreciated so that they can be posted on the Lowry Memorial Fund Web site.

 

The Administrators of the Lowry Memorial Fund anticipate the awards to be funded throughout the lifetimes of Prof. Lowry's sons, until and unless IAUC notifies MBG that the awards are no longer needed.

 

The committees and their members whom IAUC assigns to select award recipients are fully empowered to use their judgment in fulfilling and interpreting the awards' aims.

 

Prof. Lowry's sons reserve the right to modify the awards' terms and particulars, subject to consultation with IAUC.