SGS Award
Announcement
To:
Graduate
Chairs/Directors; Graduate Coordinators; Graduate Administrators
From:
Stacey Kwan, Graduate Awards Officer (Provincial), Graduate Awards Office
CC:
Joshua Barker, Dean, Graduate Studies and Vice-Provost, Graduate Research and
Education; Luc De Nil, Vice-Dean, Students; Laura Stathopoulos, Director, Graduate
Awards and Financial Aid
Date:
Re:
October 1
6
, 2017
2018 John Charles Polanyi Prizes
Award Overview
Applicant Deadline to Graduate Unit:
December 1, 2017*
Graduate Unit Deadline to SGS:
December 7, 2017
Value/Duration:
$20,000
Level of Study:
Postdoctoral or has faculty appointment
Required Legal Status:
Ontario resident
Results:
November 2018 by agency
* Applicants are to submit their application to their graduate unit
or their supervisor’s affiliated graduate
unit, not the Graduate Awards Office (or the Dean of Graduate Studies as the COU announcement indicates).
Purpose
To honour of the achievement of John Charles Polanyi, recipient of the 1986
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Ontario
Government established a fund to provide John Charles Polanyi Prizes annually to up to five outstanding
researchers or scholars who are in the early stages of their career and at Ontario universities. The prizes, each
which is currently valued at $20,000, will be conferred in the fall of 2018. They are available in the areas of Physics,
Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Economic Science, broadly defined.
The John Charles Polanyi Prize is a prestigious award and The University of Toronto is well represented on the
list of
prize winners
. It is our aim to remain successful in this competition and we continue to encourage graduate units to
nominate their strongest, eligible candidates.
Read about the
2016 UofT Prize winners
, and past the UofT recipients of the
2015 Polanyi Prize
,
2014 Polanyi Prize
and
2013 Polanyi Prize
.
Eligibility to Apply
To be eligible for an award, applicants must:
1.
Be normally resident in Ontario;
2.
Have received their doctoral degree from any recognized university in the world on or after September 1,
2014, or, if the doctoral degree has not yet been awarded, be confident that they will have completed all
degree requirements by April 30, 2018 (an applicant who was on parental leave between the time of
completion of the doctorate and the time of application may have their period of eligibility extended by six
months);
3. Either be planning to continue to post-doctoral studies, or hold a faculty appointment, in a recognized
publically assisted university in Ontario.
Nomination/Application Process
All applicants must submit to the
ir graduate unit or their supervisor’s affiliated graduate unit
an electronic copy of
the following documents in a single PDF package by December 1, 2017:
1. The completed application form
–
attached, and available from Council of Ontario
Universities’
(COU)
website:
http://www.cou.on.ca/about/chairs-and-awards/john-charles-polanyi-prizes
2. Curriculum vitae (no page restrictions), including information concerning the application. Updates to
curriculum vitae will not be accepted after submission;
3. A summary of the doctoral thesis (1 page max, to be written by the applicant);
4. A statement of research (or writing) to be undertaken during the period of the award, prepared by the
applicant (maximum of 2 pages, plus an additional 1 page for diagrams, bibliography, etc.);
5. A non-technical summary of research or scholarship, written by the applicant (maximum 500 words);
6. Confidential letters (on letterhead and signed) from
four assessors
(emailed directly to
your unit’s
graduate administrator before December 1, 2017).
Two of the assessors must not have had any prior personal or professional association with the
applicant (e.g., as supervisor or a member of the applicant’s supervisory community) and ideally are not
at a university at which the applicant is, or has been, a student or an employee.
Lett
ers should focus on an evaluation of the applicant’s research (or writing) to date, and the research
(or writing) being undertaken.
Assessors must read and comment on the statement of research (or writing) being submitted as part of
the application.
Note:
Applicants do not need to obtain the Dean’s signature or endorsement when submitting the application. The
Graduate Awards Office will provide this endorsement to those applications selected by SGS to put forth to COU.
Contacts & Resources
Please direct all questions regarding the John Charles Polanyi Prizes competition or nomination process to:
Stacey Kwan
Graduate Awards Officer (Provincial)
Phone: 416-978-2205
staceym.kwan@utoronto.ca
SGS Polanyi Prizes webpage
COU Inquiries
Phone: 416-979-2165, extension 235
ExecDirectorQA@cou.on.ca
COU Polanyi Prizes webpage