Vice-Chancellor's Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and the University Higher Degrees by Research Committee have established the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. 

Eligibility

To be eligible for nomination for the award a student will normally have received recommendations from two external examiners that the degree should be awarded without amendments to the thesis (A, A). Students passed with minor amendments (A,B) may also be considered on the basis of a case made by the nominator to the University Higher Degrees by Research Committee.

Doctoral students who have been completed and are awarded the degree in the previous year (eg 2024) are eligible to be nominated. Nominees need not have graduated at this stage.

PhD by prior published work and higher doctorate students are not eligible for consideration of this award.

Procedures

The Office of Graduate Research will call for nominations from the supervisors of eligible students inviting them to submit a nomination in January of each year.

The nominations will then be forwarded to the University Higher Degrees by Research Committee via the Office of Graduate Research. These will be considered by the University Higher Degrees by Research Committee and forwarded to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) for a final recommendation.

Nomination from the supervisor 

The nomination must address the following points separately:

• Highlights from the examiner's reports and recommendations.
• Extent of revisions required to the thesis.
• Publications stemming from the thesis or publication equivalents and other appropriate research outputs (for example, patents, exhibitions, performances and other creative works). Unrelated publications will not be considered.
• Other recognition for the quality of research undertaken for the thesis (for example, prizes and awards conferred, recognition by professional organisations, invitations to prestigious conferences).
  
• Timely completion of the degree.

The points above will be considered relative to the student's project and/or discipline.

In addition to the criteria above, examiners will be informed of the award and will confidentially indicate on the Examination Report Form if they would like the student to be considered for the award. This information will also inform the University Higher Degrees by Research Committee.

• Refer to the Awards for Academic Excellence Policy for further information about the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence
• Nomination form for Vice Chancellors Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence
• Example of supervisor nomination
• Previous doctoral thesis excellence recipients.
  

Additional awards

Recipients and supervisors should also refer to the research awards information. Your outstanding doctoral thesis may be an excellent contender for other awards.