Nomination period open: 2025 Outstanding Performance Awards
October
21
Mon
2024
8:00 amMDT
Closed to Public
In an effort to boost the number of nominations for the CIRES Outstanding Performance Awards, the nomination period has been expanded and is now open. The application process has been modified so that nominations can be works in progress until the application is ready for submission.
- Nomination period: ends Feb. 3, 2025
- Letters of support due: Feb. 21, 2025
- Award winners directly notified by: March 24, 2025
- Awards presented: CIRES Rendezvous in May 2025
The CIRES Outstanding Performance Awards aim to recognize novel, high-impact efforts that illustrate remarkable creativity or resourcefulness within three distinct categories: “Science and Engineering,” “Science Service,” and “Administrative Service.”
If you know a CIRES member or team that made a ground-breaking scientific discovery, creatively applied technology to advance environmental research, generated outstanding outreach and communication materials that resulted in profound public awareness or spearheaded some heroic organizational feat in support of the CIRES mission, please make time to submit a worthy nomination for this special individual or group using the CIRES nomination website.
Anyone can nominate a CIRES employee or team whom they feel is deserving!
- Nominations must be received by 5:00 PM MST on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Nominations received after this deadline will be considered in next year's decision.)
- Letters of support will be accepted until 5:00 PM MST on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.
For team nominations, please list all names in the “Nominee Name” section and use the team lead email address. Please note that a nomination, including the nominee list, cannot be modified once the nomination deadline has passed.
The criteria by which nominations will be evaluated are described in detail on the CIRES nomination website. All renewable-term CIRES employees are eligible except CIRES Fellows, visiting scientists, senior management, and students who are not part of a larger team effort. On average, we receive 10 to 20 nominations and make about seven selections. Thus, we strongly recommend that all nominations clearly and concisely address all the criteria described on the CIRES nomination website, providing evidence of the nominee's qualifications, directly stating why the nominee(s) deserves the award, and supporting the nomination with two to three letters of support. Nominators are encouraged to reach out to supporters prior to nomination to ensure the appropriate number of support letters will be received on time. The requested support letters will be submitted by the references directly to the OPA Committee via the online submittal system.
Awards will be presented at the 2025 CIRES Rendezvous in May.
OPA recipients typically receive a $2,000 award, which is shared if a nomination includes multiple teammates.
Nominations will be evaluated by a panel of CIRES members composed of three members of the CIRES Members' Council and three representatives of the CIRES community. Please note that panel members may be neither nominators nor nominees. To find out more, please send an email to ciresawards@colorado.edu. This email address is for questions only; nominations cannot be accepted by email but must be submitted by logging into the InsideCIRES portal using the Next button after selecting either Science and Engineering Award, Science Service Award, or Administrative Service Award.
