Best Paper Awards.

Abstract

A prior editorial1 describes the history of the International Academy of Indoor Air Sciences (the Academy), including its incorporation as the Academy of Fellows into the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ). This issue's editorial announces the winners of Indoor Air's Best Paper Awards for publication years 2014-2016. In preparing this editorial, another look back at the Academy's history seemed warranted, so that the new honors could be properly placed in context. Some key information was held only in private records, which motivated the recording of some further history of our research community. To summarize briefly, the Academy was first established as an independent organization in 1991. One of its functions was to select the president of the Indoor Air XX conference series. Since the merger, that responsibility now rests with the ISIAQ Board of Directors. Another Academy function, which continues, was to recognize and celebrate excellence in the indoor air research community, through creating and bestowing awards. An executive committee, with three elected members, leads the Academy (Table 1). In 1999, the Academy's executive committee announced the establishment of three awards: the Yaglou Award, honoring the achievement of an early career researcher; the Pettenkofer Gold Medal, honoring the achievement of a senior researcher; and the Best Paper Awards. The Yaglou and Pettenkofer awards have been presented at each of the Indoor Air conferences since 1999.2 (One additional Yaglou Award was made at the Healthy Buildings 2000 conference.) Best Paper Awards were presented at the six Indoor Air conferences held from 1999 through 2014. Winners for years 2005-2013 were honored in the previous editorials.2-4 As there was no archival record of the earlier winners, Table 2 recounts the full list of prior winners of the Indoor Air Best Paper Awards. The Indoor Air 2016 conference in Ghent, Belgium, marked the first time that this conference met at a two-year interval. The Academy leadership continued the tradition of presenting the Yaglou and Pettenkofer awards at this conference. Congratulations to Dr. Jinhan Mo, the 2016 winner of the Yaglou Award, and to Professor Shin-ichi Tanabe, the 2016 winner of the Pettenkofer Award. The responsibility for the Best Paper Awards was delegated to the Indoor Air Editors, and I made the decision to maintain the three-year award interval. Members of the Editorial Board and the journal's Associate Editors were invited to nominate articles for this cycle of Best Paper Awards from among the 192 that were published in Indoor Air during the years 2014-2016. Eight people submitted nominations, naming twenty separate articles, and five of these were named in two separate nominations. I added five other articles to create a finalist pool of 25, from which the six winners were selected. What makes for a “best paper”? One important feature is that the research addresses an important topic. The domain of indoor environmental quality and its relation to human health and well-being is vast. The research enterprise is small. Best papers report on the problems of considerable scale within the spectrum of indoor environmental quality concerns. A second distinguishing feature is that the article makes a substantial contribution to knowledge. Archival journals exist to record the creation of new knowledge. We seek to honor papers that stand out because they teach a considerable amount about the subject they address. A third key feature for best papers is that they communicate effectively. The core message should be clear. The new research should be well placed in the context of prior knowledge. The presented evidence should effectively support the new findings. At best, the paper is a pleasure to read. The winning papers are listed here in the order of publication, along with a brief highlight of each. Hearty congratulations to all authors of these fine articles, the winners of the Indoor Air Best Paper Awards for 2014-2016. Thanks to the Associate Editors and Editorial Board members who submitted nominations for these Best Paper awards. Thanks also to Shin-ichi Tanabe for assistance in reconstructing the history recorded in Tables 1 and 2.