Definitions

1. ACM awards fit into one of the following categories:
   
   
   • Merit (contribution, achievement, or innovation): for single or cumulative technical contributions to a discipline.
   • Service: for service to the award's sponsor and/or to a community.
   • Paper: for the best paper, possibly with author restrictions (e.g., students or teams), given at a technical meeting or suite of meetings or published in a journal or another form, possibly over some period of time.
     
     
2. A prize (contest or competition) is a form of award which allows self-nomination and for which the selection criteria imply a contest of some form with selection criteria that may go beyond merit.
   
   
3. A grant is a form of award which provides for the reimbursement of expenses to conduct research, attend technical meetings, etc. and for which the selection criteria may include factors other than merit or service (e.g., financial need or gender).
   
   
4. An award is jointly sponsored if one or more sponsors is a non-ACM organization.
   
   
5. An award is named if its title includes the name of a real person, living or deceased.
   
   
6. An award is endowed if there is a designated fund balance whose earnings are used to fund the ongoing expenses of the award (e.g., honorarium and administrative costs).
   
   
7. The ACM Awards Committee consists of the ACM President, the CEO/Executive Director (ex-officio), the Chair of the Awards Committee, the current chairs of the individual ACM award selection committees, and the ACM SIG Chairs’ Liaison with the Awards Committee.

New Awards

1. Proposals for new ACM awards must have a sponsoring ACM unit (e.g., SIGs or ACM Council for Association-wide awards). An ad hoc group from within the ACM may initiate the proposal.
   
   
2. Proposals must include at least the following elements:
   
   
   • Succinct statement of the award criteria,
   • Nomination process,
   • Selection process,
   • A statement of the form of the award (e.g., framed certificate, plaque, gift, cash)
   • If the award includes an honorarium (i.e., cash prize), a plan for securing the award's financial viability, and
   • An indication of how often the award is given. The usual frequency is annual, but every other year is also acceptable.
   
   
3. If the criteria for a proposed award have potential overlap with other ACM awards, they must clearly address the overlap.
   
   
4. The nomination process normally should provide for nominations from the appropriate broad community. This requires wide notification. The nomination process for subunit service awards and paper awards are examples of awards whose nomination process may be less broad.
   
   
5. The selection process should identify a selection committee distinct from the sponsoring ACM subunits. For example, Association-wide awards normally should have selection committees that are overseen by the ACM Awards Committee, SIG awards normally should have selection committees overseen by the SGB, and paper awards normally should be selected by the applicable conference program committee.
   
   
6. If the award includes an honorarium, the award normally should be endowed. If the award includes travel reimbursement, memorabilia, and/or administrative expenses, the endowment and/or sponsoring units must budget for these ongoing expenses.
   
   
7. All ACM awards must be approved by the ACM Awards Committee. Approval by ACM Council is required before any proper name may be attached to any such award or prize. This authority may not be delegated. Subunit-wide awards, excluding Named Awards, generally do not require ACM Council approval.
   
   
8. Awards may be established in conjunction with other groups subject to the conditions for new awards, and in particular, arrangements for financing, committee appointments, venue of presentation, and staff responsibility, should be specified.
   
   

Service Awards

The ACM Recognition of Service certificate program is available to all ACM subunits for their use in recognizing contributions to professional service in their areas (e.g., conference leadership, subunit leadership, or newsletter editorship).

1. ACM subunits are encouraged to develop and to maintain award programs to recognize significant and long-term contributions to professional volunteerism within the area of their subunits.
   
   
2. The ACM Awards Committee will give pro forma approval to subunit service awards, provided they:
   
   
• have a written nomination and selection process
• are given at regular intervals to moderate numbers of volunteers, and
• include honoraria not exceeding US$1,000.
  
  
3. In addition to their subunit service awards, subunits are encouraged to nominate candidates to the Association-wide service awards (e.g., Outstanding Contribution to ACM and Distinguished Service).

Paper Awards

1. ACM subunits that publish technical papers (e.g., SIG conferences) are encouraged to develop and maintain "best paper" awards.
   
   
2. The ACM Awards Committee will give pro forma approval to best paper awards, provided they:
   
   
• have a written selection process,
• are administered by the appropriate technical committee (typically the conference's program committee), and
• include honoraria not exceeding US$1,000.
  
  
3. In addition to their subunit paper awards, subunits are encouraged to submit their best technical papers for publications in other Association venues, where appropriate.
   
   

Jointly Sponsored Awards

1. ACM awards may be jointly sponsored with other appropriate non-ACM organizations.
2. Joint sponsorship with for-profit organizations requires additional justification for approval
3. The nomination and selection process, as well as the administrative terms, of jointly sponsored awards must carefully delineate the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of all sponsors. In particular, arrangements for financing, committee appointments, venue of presentation, and staff responsibility should be specified.
4. All jointly sponsored awards must be approved by the ACM Council.

Endowed Awards

1. A proposal for a new endowed award must include a plan to fully endow the award within five years of the award's establishment.
2. Donors should be advised that their contributions will be applied toward the designated award on a "best efforts" basis. If an award is under-endowed after it has been given five times, the ACM Awards Committee may remove the "endowed" designation from the award and/or discontinue the award. Should an award become under-endowed, the originally sponsoring ACM subunit is responsible for developing and initiating a plan to fully endow the award. When an award is discontinued, the endowment may be redirected to another award's endowment. Donors should not expect that their contributions will be returned if the award is under-endowed and/or discontinued. If the award continues to be under-endowed, contributions to an endowment may be applied to the ongoing expenses of the award.
3. Subunit endowment contributions may be made with explicit instructions for disposition of the contribution upon under-endowment and/or discontinuation of the award (e.g., return of the remaining fund balance to the subunit or redirection of the balance to another award's endowment). The ACM Awards Committee will honor such instructions in good faith.
4. The costs of travel reimbursement, memorabilia, and/or administration normally should be included in the endowment calculation.
5. To be fully endowed, an award's fund balance normally should be at least 15 times, and preferably 20 times, the annual ongoing expense of the award.
6. There should be no expectation that individual donors will become members of the award's selection committee.

Named Awards

1. ACM named awards, including prizes and grants, convey special distinction and require additional justification for approval. Both the merit of the award in the ACM context and the appropriateness of the proposed name will be scrutinized carefully.
2. It is desirable that the person for whom the award is named be widely recognized in the area in which the award is given. Association-wide awards imply a wider scope of recognition than sub-unit awards. The burden of persuasion for names of less-recognized persons will be on the nominators.
3. The documentation for a named award should include:
   
   
   • a 500 word statement from the nominator describing the purpose and value of the award and the appropriateness of the name
   • the type of award to be given (plaque, trophy, cash, etc)
   • the criteria for selecting award winners
   • a plan for funding the award (endowment, sponsor contract, etc)
   • letters from at least 5 professional ACM members endorsing the award and commenting on its value to ACM and the appropriateness of the name
   • permission for the use of the name from the person named (if living) or the person's estate
     
     
4. Named awards normally should be endowed, but the merit of the award must stand independently of the proposed funding.
5. The name should pose no adverse legal or ethical problems.
6. Persons who are active as volunteers or staff may not be considered as names for awards while they are still active.
7. To provide an opportunity for full discussion of each proposal for a named award, the ACM Award Committee's vote on a recommendation to Council will normally take place at the Committee's annual meeting. Discussion by both the Awards Committee and Council will take place in closed sessions.

Mark Scott Johnson, ACM SIG Chairs' Liaison with the ACM Awards Committee
Calvin C. Gotlieb, Awards Committee Chair