The Selection Sub-Committees/Committee will consider each nomination from the Faculty/School according to the following criteria, which have been extracted and summarized from the Manual on Performance-based Reward System for Academic/Teaching Staff to describe “Excellent” performance in the three areas of teaching, scholarly work and service.  The selection criteria of the UGC Teaching Award are incorporated into the selection criteria of the President’s Award in Teaching upon integrating the two selection processes.  Specifically, the Committees will look for the following behavioural traits, performance evidence and/or achievements of the individual colleagues in the past five years for consideration of the President’s Award for Outstanding Performance:

(a)      Outstanding Performance in Teaching

• Genuine care and concern for student performance and development and be responsive to their feedback, devoting time to meet with students outside classrooms for discussion and counseling; careful design and marking of student assignments and receiving good feedback from students.

• Adoption of learner-centred approaches, ability to engage/inspire/impact on students and demonstration of superior classroom acumen, which may include a good understanding of pedagogy, understanding how students learn and adopting suitable teaching and assessment approaches that can achieve better student learning outcomes; being able to interact with students and engage them in learning with enthusiasm; inspiring and supporting students, with respect for their diverse learning needs, to build confidence and capability (including critical thinking, analytical skills, values, etc.) and outstanding classroom (as well as outside-classroom) teaching.

• Course/programme/curriculum design that can reflect a command of the field, which may include demonstrating up-to-date knowledge of the field of study in the design of the curriculum and student learning resources (e.g., textbooks, e-learning resources) and adopting complementary research-informed teaching practices; and developing appropriate student learning outcomes and adopting innovative approaches to teaching and assessment which can facilitate students’ achievement of the learning outcomes.

• Past/present achievement(s) and leadership in teaching and potential scholarly contribution to and impact on the development of effective teaching practice within his/her own institution and/or in other institutions, which may include demonstrating educational research and innovations in the field of study; and demonstrating leadership in the promotion of teaching excellence within the institution and/or in other institutions.

(b)     Outstanding Performance in Scholarly Work

• High quality of scholarly work as evidenced by peer reviews, citations, awards, honours and/or prizes.

• High quality of scholarly work is making an important impact and contribution to the relevant academic discipline or profession, which is widely recognized in the field.

• Recognition as an expert in the field as evidenced by invitations to be keynote speakers in important international conferences, and/or member of the editorial board for refereed journal publications or a member of the review panel for other forms of quality scholarly output.

• Independent research leadership leading to initiation and development of creative ideas, discovery of new frontier, and/or enrichment of the related disciplines.

(c)      Outstanding Performance in Service

• Dedication and commitment to serve the Department/Faculty/School/University through taking up various academic and administrative leadership positions, with a view to helping the University grow and develop and prosper.

• Active involvement in consultancy work, public service, professional community, and the community at large which help to raise the academic standing of the University.  Paid consultancies/services would normally be excluded from award consideration.

• Frequent invitations to provide services to other academic institutions/professional bodies which resulted in collaborations and exchanges between the University with other academic institutions and the wider community. 

(d)     Outstanding Young Researcher

• Contribution to high-impact scholarly work leading to significant breakthrough and/or enrichment of the related disciplines.

• Demonstrated growing maturity in scholarly work with emerging standing in the international scene.

• Recognition of scholarly work as evidenced by attainment of research grants from prestigious bodies, peer reviews, citations, etc. which may vary across different disciplines.

The Selection Sub-Committees/Committee have the discretion in refining the selection criteria for the respective Awards taking into account the uniqueness of different academic disciplines.

Personnel Office
(Revised September 2012)