All awardees must clearly exemplify the NSS vision and mission and embody its values (website: https://www.thenss.org/mission). In addition, the following criteria will be used to evaluate nominations for each of the specific award categories: 

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Annual Achievement Award (Team)

• Demonstrates Sustained and Cumulative Impact: The center, team, or program demonstrates a record of sustained achievement over time, with clear evidence of lasting impact at the highest levels, extending beyond individual projects or funding cycles. 

• Advances Sustainability Knowledge: The work has made significant contributions to sustainability scholarship through generating, integrating, and disseminating knowledge that advances theory, methods, and practice across disciplines. 

• Bridges Knowledge to Action through Co-Production: The effort exemplifies co-production by integrating academic research with community-based knowledge to design and implement solutions and engage partners from public, private, and/or non-profit sectors in meaningful, reciprocal ways. 

• Demonstrates Real-World Impact: Clear evidence exists that the work has led to tangible sustainability outcomes beyond academia, such as the adoption of new technologies or practices, changes in policy or governance, or other sustained sustainability actions attributable to the center, team, or program.

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This award emphasizes cumulative impact and contribution, rather than focusing on a specific project. This award is inclusive of a center, team, or program that has advanced sustainability scholarship and application through multiple projects or avenues with sustained impact over time. This award is open to teams of sustainability scholars that include members from or deep engagement with community partners from public, private, or non-profit sectors.

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​Innovations in Sustainability Education Award (Team)

• Demonstrates Transformative Learning Impact: The nominated team demonstrates success in preparing and empowering learners to lead and/or participate successfully in sustainability transformations, including evidence of developing knowledge and skills related to critical thinking, systems thinking, and real-world application.

• Integrates Interdisciplinary and Systems Perspectives: The nominated team effectively integrates multiple disciplines and systems perspectives to provide holistic and inclusive sustainability education experiences.

• Demonstrates Innovation and Replicability: The nominated team demonstrates originality and creativity in their educational model or approach, with clear potential for adaptation or replication in other settings or contexts.

• Builds on Sustainability Key Competencies: The nominate team’s work is grounded in core sustainability learning objectives, such as those described by Redman and Wiek (2021), including systems-thinking and anticipatory, normative, strategic, and interpersonal, intrapersonal, implementation, and integration competence. 

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This award is open to any multidisciplinary team from an institution of higher education and must include both faculty and administrators who have been instrumental in implementing the program. 

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Reference: Redman, A., & Wiek, A. (2021, November). Competencies for advancing transformations towards sustainability. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 6, p. 785163). Frontiers Media SA.

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Innovations in Sustainability Practice Award (Team)

• Implements Innovations in Practice: The nominated team has implemented an innovative technology, policy, or practice that addresses a sustainability challenge in a specific sector (e.g., energy, water, buildings, transportation, healthcare, resource or materials management) and that delivers measurable improvements in emissions or waste reduction, sustainable materials use, or energy, water, or resource efficiency. 

• Demonstrates Collaborative Practice and Partnership-Building: The nominated team has successfully worked across sectors and with diverse partners to build trust, bridge differences, and co-create sustainability solutions.

• Integrates Community-based Knowledge: The nominated team values and incorporates community-based knowledge to enrich project design, implementation, and outcomes.

• Demonstrates Impact: The team shows clear evidence of real-world impact, with results that are measurable, transferable, or positioned for broader adoption.

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This award is open to interdisciplinary teams led by sustainability practitioners from the public, private, non-profit, or higher education sector working with diverse partners. 

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Emerging Scholar Award (Individual)

• Demonstrates Scholarly Innovation and Rigor: The nominee pursues original, high-quality research that advances understanding of critical sustainability challenges and publishes work in relevant, high-impact scholarly journals.

• Contributes to Real-World Relevance and Impact: The nominee’s research contributes to practical solutions and/or policy insights.

• Engages Meaningfully through Collaborative Knowledge Co-Production: The nominee engages meaningfully with scholars from other disciplines as well as partners outside academia to co-develop or translate research into action.

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This award is open to scholars who have been working and publishing in  sustainability and sustainability-related areas for 10 years or less. Although the award is for an individual, the nomination must provide evidence of how the scholar has worked within interdisciplinary team settings and interacted in meaningful ways with partners outside of academia to inform their research or translation of research. 

 

Additional Guidance

In addition to the merit criteria above, the following considerations apply:

• Accomplishments must have occurred within the last five years.

• Team awards must include a U.S. location or at least one U.S.-based partner organization.

• Note that the nominator must be an NSS member. The nominees need not be NSS members or member organizations.

 

Timeline

• Through May 15: Call for nominations is open

• By June 15A: Awardees selected and notified

• August 17-19: Awardees announced and recognized at the Third Annual NSS Conference in Denver, CO

  • The NSS anticipates supporting the attendance of one representative for each award at the conference

 

Questions

Contact NSS Awards Chair and President-Elect Prof. Elena Irwin: irwin.78@osu.edu