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IAC's Scientific Award

IAC's Scientific Award

IAC Global Award for Scientific Contributions to Conscientiology 

 

INFORMATION ABOUT PROCEDURES AND RESULTS  
 

Dear research colleagues and scholars of Conscientiology,
 
We are pleased to inform you that the evaluation process of the mentalsomatic works submitted to the 1st IAC Global Award for Scientific Contributions to Conscientiology is now completed and closed.Till this moment, aiming to guarantee the neutrality of the evaluations, the names of the judging panel members as well as the strategy adopted for the evaluation of works were held in complete confidentiality. Not even the judging panel members knew who the other referees were. 
 
To ensure the best standardization possible in the grading of works, the Department of Research and Scientific Communication of the IAC established a strict protocol, with a set of procedures, which is briefly mentioned below for your knowledge. 
 
This document also informs you about the results of the evaluation of the works. Below you will find relevant comments on the final results and you can also verify more specifications in the final evaluation sheet with the details of the analysis, which is attached to this email, thereby granting the greatest possible transparency to the IAC Scientific Award. 
 
Guidelines used by the Scientific Committee for analysis and evaluation of the works: 

GENERAL POLICY 

 
The IAC Scientific Award honors researchers who published papers that made significant theoretical or empirical advances in any subdiscipline of Conscientiology. Therefore, each work has been graded based on its value to CONSCIENTIOLOGY, despite the importance that might have (or has had) in any other field of science. 
  • The "size" of the work has not been taken into consideration to evaluate its importance. Therefore, the same "value" was given to a book or an article, since what distinguished which work made a greater contribution to Conscientiology were the aspects described below, not the size. 
  • In the context of the IAC Scientific Award, the form, which includes language and writing style, were considered of lesser value than the content (although it has value and has also been assessed). Therefore, a new word (i.e., a neologism) was not necessarily taken as of weight or importance, unless a valuable new concept was associated with it. 
  • The work that led (1) to a greater understanding of the known concepts, (2) the creation of new approaches, techniques or theories, or (3) to conjecture of important concepts, were taken as the most relevant in the context of this contest.
 

WORK-FLOW (RECEIVING AND RETURNING FILES) 

 
The referees received one copy of each work submitted and one form (Evaluation Sheet) to examine the work according to specific criteria.
 
The Evaluation Sheets, with all fields that refer to grading appropriately filled out, were returned by the referees directly to the "work-flow manager". 
 
The function of the "work-flow manager" was done with great professionalism and care by Filipe Picolo, a volunteer of the IAC Research Campus. 
 
The judging panel was composed of key-representatives of different COs, constituting, therefore, a diversified referee team, strengthening even more the neutrality of the analysis and the results. and of varied paradigms of work. Unfortunately some individuals from a few COswere unable to accept the invitation to join the judging panel for various reasons, mainly limitation of time. 
 
With this, a scientific committee composed by individuals from different cultures and languages was formed, representing COs of different specialties within Conscientiology.
 

Each aspect analysed in the form received a specific 'weight', previously attributed. When the refereegraded an aspect and put it down in the appropriate field, the Excel sheet automatically calculated the final grading of the work, taking into consideration the specific weight given to each aspect analysed.  

 
After all referees sent back their Evaluation Sheets in Excel for ALL the submitted works to the "work-flow manager", these were compiled to achieve a total score for each work.  
 

EVALUATION CRITERIA

 
The following aspects were evaluated by referees:
  • Relevance of the study to Conscientiology (weight 4)
  • Originality and innovativeness (weight 4)
  • Quality of research (weight 4)
  • Consistency (weight 3)
  • Work's structure, organization, presentation and style (weight 2)
  • Impact and benefit to science (weight 2)
  • Complexity of the research topic (weight 1)
 
Observations:
  1. Each of the above aspects was thoroughly described and exemplified, to ensure a uniform understanding by all the referees.
  2. Only the referees evaluated works and gave scores. No other person in any CO or any IAC office interfered in the results.
  3. Representatives of different COs composed the scientific committee, giving wider coverage and impartiality to the results. 
We would like to thank the authors who have submitted their works and would also like to express our sincere appreciation to all who contributed to this work, especially the judging panel members listed above, who devoted much of their time to undertake the analysis of the works.  
 

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE FIRST EDITION OF THE IAC GLOBAL AWARD FOR SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION TO CONSCIENTIOLOGY 

 
Given the significant number of high quality works published in the last decade on Conscientiology, it is evident that few authors prioritized the opportunity of this award by submitting their works. 
 
Beyond rewarding the winner of the contest and recognizing the value of their consciential gestation to Conscientiology, the initiative of the IAC Global Scientific Award aims to encourage conscientiological research in general and to promote among conscientiologists the routine of publishing and exchanging their scientific and mentalsomatic works. 
 
Only one of the authors of submitted works, Jim Tucker, is not affiliated with a CO.  Dr. Tucker is linked to the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia, USA. 
 
As can be seen in the attached evaluation sheet, all the submitted works received good ratings, thus, we congratulate the authors who submitted their works for analysis. You can also verify in this table of results that there was a minimal difference between the first places (marked in the right column). 
 
We hope that future editions of this event count with more submitted works, reflecting in a more realistic way the maturity of the scientific communication of researchers-authors of Conscientiology.  
 

IAC SCIENTIFIC AWARD Ceremony 

Please note that the ceremony for the presentation of the trophy to the winner of the contest will occur during the 2nd International Symposium on Conscientiological Research, which will take place in the IAC Research Campus in Portugal on October 18 and 19, 2008. We would like to invite everyone to participate and submit their work for the 2nd IAC Global Award for Scientific Contributions to Conscientiology, which will occur in 2010. The call for papers will be published in the near future. 
 

With best wishes for your mentalsomatic gestations,  

IAC Team