ACS National Award Nomination Guidelines

Eligibility Criteria

Nominators

• Nominators are not required to be members of the Society.
• A nomination can only have one nominator and the recommendation letter is written by this person.
• Any individual, except a member of the award selection committee or an ACS Board member during their terms of service on the Board, may submit one nomination and/or one support letter for each award. However, selection committee members may submit other nominations or support letters for awards for which they are not serving as a judge.
• An individual can serve as the primary nominator for a nomination and provide a letter of support for a different nomination for the same ACS National Award.
• An individual can only serve as the primary nominator for one nomination and provide a letter of support for one nomination for each ACS National Award at a time.

Nominees

• Nominees are not required to be members of the Society unless the submission is for the ACS Award for Team Innovation (which requires at least one team member to be an ACS member in good standing), the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry, the Award for Volunteer Service to the ACS, the Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success, or the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award.
• The nominee’s accomplishments should be specific to the purpose of the award.
• In general, a recipient of a widely recognized scientific award is not eligible for an ACS National Award unless the accomplishment cited as the basis for the nomination represents new or different work.
  
• An individual who has received an ACS National Award may be nominated for a different ACS National Award if (1) the nomination is for clearly different work from the previous award (the letter of recommendation must address the differences between the work performed for the previous ACS National Award and that which is addressed in the current nomination) or (2) at least five years has elapsed since the previous ACS National Award was received. The five year rule is waived for the preceptor(s) of the students who are eligible to receive the Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry.

Rules & Guidelines

• Nominations remain in the database for three award cycles. If a nominee is not named as the recipient, their nomination will automatically rollover to the next award cycle. We encourage nominators to access the nomination during the annual nomination period to update the nomination as required.
  
• After the third award cycle, the nomination will expire. The year that the award will be presented to the nominee is the award cycle year. For example, we are accepting nominations for the 2025 award cycle from July 1, 2023. The nomination deadline for the 2025 award cycle is November 1, 2023. The recipients of these awards will be presented with their awards in 2025.
• Some awards are presented biennially (even- or odd-year) or triennially and therefore skip a year. If a nomination is submitted for a biennial award given in the even-numbered years, for example, the nomination submitted will remain in the system for the 2024, 2026, and 2028 award cycles.
• Support letters remain in the database for the same three award cycles.
• An ACS National Award may be rescinded by the ACS Board of Directors upon consultation with the National Awards Advisory Board or a similar Board committee which has been delegated oversight responsibility for the National Awards program and upon a finding by the Board of reasonable grounds for rescission. Reasonable grounds may include, but are not limited to, a determination that (1) the award resulted from a material mistake of fact, (2) a material fact is discovered that, if known, would have disqualified the awardee, or (3) the awardee is discovered to have engaged in pre- or post-award conduct that is inconsistent with either the objects of the American Chemical Society as stated in Article II Section 1 of its Constitution or the Chemical Professional’s Code of Conduct. Such a finding may occur only after the body that made the award (if other than the Board) and the awardee have been given reasonable notice of the timing and grounds for the Board’s consideration of the rescission and an opportunity to provide written arguments against the rescission. Rescission may occur only upon an affirmative vote by at least two-thirds of the voting members of the Board present at the Board meeting duly called to consider the rescission.

Other Information

• Requirements & Timeline
• Balloting Procedure
  
• Nomination User Guide (PDF)