1. Aim

Alena Brunovska (AB) Award is the memory award, created in recognition of Alena Brunovska´s work. A purpose of this Award is to tribute to professor Brunovska’s commitment to the development of public administration education in the region of Central and Eastern Europe and to promote the lecturers and their outcomes that continue Brunovska’s legacy.

2. Publication, Selection and Ceremonial Announcement of the AB Award

The call for the AB Award is usually published annually for the calendar year; however, the NISPAcee 
Steering Committee as the selection body has a discretion not to award the nominee every year in order to acknowledge the best practices only. The NISPAcee Steering Committee can also appoint a special commission to review the applications and propose the selection to the Steering Committee, particularly if there are numerous applications submitted in a certain year. Decisions of the Selection Committee will be final and binding.

The AB Award call is published in autumn at NISPAcee webpages, with submission deadline December 1 and selection proceedings to run from December to May. It is a recognition to be announced in the annual NISPAcee conference, which customarily take place in May. The award comprises of an official diploma, presented to the winner at the announcement or at a separate occasion. If the annual conference is not carried out or just in a limited scope (e.g. online) but an awardee has been selected, the announcement of the AB Award is published at the NISPAcee web pages with the ceremony organised at the next conference or other event as decided by the Steering Committee. The recipient may be invited to deliver a lecture to the conference/event on a topic of their choice.

3. Submission process

In submitting a nomination, the following procedures apply:

• usually the call is published online and further disseminated among the NISPAcee members in autumn (October or November) every year;
• candidates shall be nominated by their department or faculty (self-nominations neither non-institutional will not be accepted), with max. one candidate per nominator; It is recommended that a collegial process be used to propose candidates – for example, by establishing a nomination committee within the department or faculty to decide which candidate(s) to put forward for the award;
• nominations must be received by the NISPAcee Headquarter via an e-mail nispa@nispa.org by 1 December for the ongoing years/s and of the year preceding the award selection and announcement;
  
• the nomination dossier should be submitted in English and include the following:
  i)    a nomination letter, establishing the eligibility criteria and structured in line with the selection criteria, i.e. including a description of achievements for each obligatory selection criterion, and potentially description for any additional areas;
  ii)    curriculum vitae (CV) of the candidate, i.e. app. 2-3 pages incorporating the formal data about the candidate, their main pedagogic activities (courses) and results, scientific and professional publications and projects;
  iii)    a letter of reference by an academic colleague or a public functionary or an official as a candidate’s collaborator that is not affiliated with the nominator; the letter shall focus on an overall candidate’s PA pedagogic outcome and can emphasise individual selection criteria that the referee is familiar with;

Candidates can be nominated also by the NISPAcee Steering Committee.

4. Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible candidates shall:

• be full-time faculty members of an institute of public administration or university/faculty or in-service (civil service) training organisation from the NISPAcee region;
• have been actively teaching during at least three most recent academic years (i.e. at least 50% of the full-time teaching load defined by the academic regulations of their respective institutions);
• be teaching and developing courses at undergraduate or graduate level or for programmes of professional in-service training; hereby, a list of all courses the candidate has taught during the three most recent academic years of teaching is to be provided with the duration of the course (i.e. one semester, full year or other, no. of ECTS) and the level of the course (i.e. undergraduate, graduate or in-service training);
• be nominated by their pedagogic institution (institute/university/faculty or in-service training organisation) providing full nomination dossier (see above);
• not already been a recipient of the NISPAcee AB Award.

5. Selection Criteria

All candidates for the AB Awards will be judged on the basis of their accomplishments in two main areas, i.e. i) teaching excellence and ii) leadership in pedagogy, as follows:

i) Teaching excellence: the candidate’s principal career accomplishments as a classroom teacher, especially:

a) a summary of the candidate’s teaching philosophy;

b) principal achievements as a teacher since beginning their teaching career (e.g. guest lectures, supervising theses awarded, acting as a programme coordinator or (vice-) dean);

c) students’ evaluations (if available, particularly for the last three years);

d) awards received for research and/or teaching in public administration.

ii) Leadership in pedagogy: how the candidate’s activities, other than classroom teaching, have contributed to improving the teaching of public administration.

Examples of activities admissible in this category include but are not limited to the following:

a) development of existing/ new courses in academic and/or in-service training programmes;

b) development of innovative teaching techniques/methods and/or materials, and application of new technologies in course design and delivery;

c) authorship of textbooks, case studies, e-classrooms or other pedagogic materials;

d) contributions toward assisting other instructors in improving their teaching abilities (transfer of knowledge to peers and younger teachers).

Achievements in any additional areas, such as contribution to the practice of public administration, applied research or commitment to the NISPAcee activities, if pointed out in the nomination dossier, are welcome but cannot replace the criteria under i) and ii).

The winner shall provide the best overall record of professional accomplishments in both obligatory (that is the criteria under i) and ii)) and possibly additional areas outlined above.

Awards

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