LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD COMMITTEE

Statement on Conflict of Interest

The International Academy for Intercultural Research (IAIR) seeks to honour and recognize an Academy Fellow who has, in the judgment of the Academy Board, contributed significantly and enduring to the scientific and theoretical foundations of intercultural research throughout his/her career.  Selection is made by a committee of Fellows –Lifetime Achievement Award Committee (LAAC) appointed by the Academy Board.  The award is made at the biennial conferences of the Academy.

The Award is given out once every 2 years. Approximately 6 months prior to the IAIR Biennial conference, a call for Award nomination is put out and nomination can ONLY be made by current members of the Academy. ONLY current Fellows of the Academy can be nominated. The nomination includes (i) the nominee’s curriculum vita (CV) and (ii) a statement by the Nominator regarding the qualities that make the Nominee worthy of the award. 

This circle of research is small compared to other disciplines, and academic scholars who study this field almost always have co-published, supported the career of several other scholars, or have had some close interactions with other scholars on a similar topic.  It is therefore crucial that the evaluation process for the Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) be conducted in a professional manner that is objective, fair, and transparent.  The LAAC members are required to evaluate all nominations in a manner that is professional and honourable.

Prior to the evaluation, all LAAC members must declare a Conflict of Interest (COI), if (i) they know of any of the nominees personally, or (ii) whether they had previously or are currently working jointly on any research projects and/or publications. The COI declaration is not intended to disqualify automatically a committee member affected by (i) and/or (ii).  The goal of this declaration is to hold individual committee members accountable for their judgement, such that it is unbiased and visible to all. The disclosure on COI must be made to the Chair after receiving the nominees’ documents, but before the evaluation commences. At that point, the chairperson will make a decision as to whether the declared COI is serious enough for the committee member to recuse themselves from the evaluation process or whether to allow participation in the evaluation process while noting the declared COI and considering its impact upon the decision-making process. 

All LAAC members shall provide to the Chair details of his or her assessments and benchmarks used in evaluating the nominee’s documentations, and the criteria used to reach their decision.

The Chair of the committee would also ascertain that none of its members is a Nominator of a Nominee. If a Nominator is a member of LAAC, this member has to recuse him/herself from the entire evaluation process. Depending on the number of LAAC members affected by this condition, the EC is obliged to appoint one or two ad-hoc committee members to join in the evaluation process.

Given the Executive Council is required by the by-laws to approve the designee(s) of this award, there exists the potential for a conflict of interest.  In the event that a member of the Executive Council has a conflict of interest, then they must declare that conflict of interest and abstain from the approval vote by the Executive Council.