CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award
Deadline
Annual Value
Citizenship
Degree Level
Sponsored jointly by Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, these dissertation awards are made annually to individuals who, in the opinion of the award committee, have completed dissertations representing original work that makes an unusually significant contribution to their disciplines.
Graduate programs may submit up to two nominations: one in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering, and one in Social Sciences. UBC will forward one nominee in each category to the international competition (open to all institutions who are members of the Council of Graduate Schools in the US and Canada).
Two CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, each consisting of an award of $2,000 and a certificate of recognition, will be presented at the CGS Annual Meeting Awards Luncheon in December 2024 in St. Louis, Missouri. Reasonable travel expenses of award recipients will be covered.
Eligibility
- The effective date of degree award, or the completion of doctoral degree requirements and dissertation, must fall in the period of July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2024, inclusive, for each nominee selected.
- Subject fields (a non-inclusive list of the research areas belonging to the broad fields under consideration is provided below):
- Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Engineering: Mathematics, statistics, computer sciences, data processing, systems analysis, chemistry, earth sciences, physics, geology, meteorology, astronomy, metallurgy, geophysics, pharmaceutical chemistry; aeronautical, architectural, biomedical, ceramic, chemical, civil, and electrical engineering sciences; environmental health engineering; geological, mechanical, mining, nuclear, and petroleum engineering.
- Social Sciences: agricultural economics, geography, anthropology, archaeology, economics, education, sociology, government (political science), demography, and psychology. Please note that for purposes of this competition, history is classed within the humanities and is not a field of competition this year.
- If a dissertation is multi- or interdisciplinary in nature, a significant portion of the work must be comprised by at least one of the 2024 fields of competition.
Note: The CGS/ProQuest Award operates on a two-year cycle in regard to fields of competition. The fields of competition for 2025 will be Biological and Life Sciences, and Humanities and Fine Arts.
Evaluation Criteria
The nominated dissertations should represent original work making an unusually significant contribution to the disciplines. Both methodological and substantive quality will be judged.
Application Procedures
- Applicants should consult their graduate program for their internal application deadline.
- Applicants must submit to their graduate program the following:
- An abstract of the applicant’s dissertation (not to exceed 5 double-spaced pages). Appendices containing nontextual material, such as charts or tables, may be included as additional pages. All pages should be numbered, and each should bear the name of the nominee.
- Three letters of recommendation evaluating the significance and quality of the applicant’s dissertation work. One of these letters is to be from the applicant's dissertation supervisor, another from a member of the applicant's dissertation committee, and the third from a person of the applicant's choice.
- The applicant’s curriculum vitae (not to exceed 5 pages).
Nomination Procedures
The CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award is very competitive - PhD dissertations from universities across North America are forwarded to this competition. UBC graduate programs are strongly encouraged to only forward nominations that are competitive with those from top PhDs throughout North America. A list of recent awardees is available from the CGS website.
The deadline for graduate programs to submit nominations to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies is 4:00 pm PT on Friday, June 14, 2024.
Graduate programs may submit up to two nominations: one in Biological Sciences/Life Sciences, and one in Humanities and Fine Arts.
- Graduate programs must submit to G+PS the following for each nominee:
- nomination form, completing the first section "Information about the Nominee" (leave the rest of the form blank)
- application materials listed in the "Application Procedures" section of this webpage above
- Each complete nomination package is to be uploaded as a single PDF file into your program's UBC Sharepoint folder (within the umbrella folder ‘Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies – Programs – Folder Structure”)(named “FACULTY – DEPT“; e.g., “ARTS – PSYC”).
- Filename: "CGS_Program_LastName_FirstName.pdf". For example, the nomination file for student Jane Smith from Mathematics would be named "CGS_MATH_Smith_Jane.pdf".
Further Information
Please see the CGS website for additional information.
For questions, please contact Joan Toledo (joan.toledo@ubc.ca).