Academic Chairs Research Articles

Navigating historiographical boundaries in the early Turkish Republican period: astrology, nationalism and Aydın Sayılı’s scholarship

This article explores two aspects of Aydın Sayılı’s scholarship: his focus on astrology and the impact of nationalist sentiments on his research. Sayılı, perhaps the first globally recognized PhD-holder in history of science, completed his degree at Harvard in the early 1940s and established Turkey’s first academic chair in the field at the University of Ankara. His works addressed both international and local audiences, advancing the history of mathematics and astronomy in Islamic societies; his scholarship on Islamic observatories is still highly esteemed today. This study highlights Sayılı’s integration of astrology into discussions in the history of science, especially with respect to Islamic observatories, a significant choice in an era when astrology and related disciplines received minimal attention in Turkish historiography. While his approach to this discipline diverges from that of prevalent twentieth-century Turkish scholarship, Sayılı’s motivations were deeply intertwined with the nationalist sentiments of the early Turkish Republic, emphasizing ‘Turkish contributions to science’. His scholarship invites further examination of the intricate relationship between the historiography of science and nationalism, as well as of twentieth-century historicizations of astrological studies.

Identifying the prevalence and characteristics of diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders in academic emergency medicine.

Our study aims to better understand and describe the current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leadership in emergency medicine (EM) by identifying the prevalence of department DEI leadership positions, their demographics, and their job duty characteristics. We disseminated an electronic survey from April to July 2022 to Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine, Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine, and the Equity and Inclusion Committee to identify department DEI leads. From July to August 2022, a 45-question survey was sent to all identified DEI leaders on individual characteristics, DEI experience, and DEI lead job description. We received a response from 79 out of 120 academic EM departments identified (65.8%). Of the responding institutions, 59 (74.7%) reported a DEI leader. A total of 74.6% of these DEI leaders responded at least partially to our survey and 57.6% responded in full. The most common titles were vice/associate chair of DEI (34.4%), director of DEI (28.1%), and DEI committee chair (18.8%). Most respondents (84.4%) were the inaugural DEI lead in their department and 84.4% of respondents did not have a formal DEI role in their department previously. On average, respondents have had their DEI title for 2 years (range 0-7 years) with an average of 7 years (range 0-30 years) of experience performing DEI work. Many (63.4%) do not receive any funded effort for their DEI roles. Most DEI leads were not tenure track (72.2%) and most commonly at the rank of assistant professor (47.2%) followed by associate professor (33.3%), full professor (16.7%), and instructor (2.8%). This is the first known study to assess the characteristics of DEI department leaders in EM. EM DEI leadership positions are new, common, and led by diverse personal identities and are often not funded. Future directions could gain qualitative insight into this workforce to guide best practices in EM DEI leadership.

Celebrating 100 years of the academic chair of surgery at St Mary’s Hospital, London

On 26 April 2023, past and present members of the department of surgery and cancer as well as those of wider supporting medical specialties of St Mary’s Hospital (SMH), London, congregated at the Royal Society under the headship of Professor Ara Darzi to celebrate 100 years since the establishment of an academic chair of surgery at SMH. The day also sought to recognise the global impact this institution has had on the surgical field over the past century and to look forwards to the major innovations that will shape the next. The event was divided into nine key sessions: cancer and minimally invasive surgery, vascular surgery, trauma and orthopaedic surgery, medicine’s impact on surgery, design, surgical education, artificial intelligence and digital health, patient safety, and allied technologies. In this article, we describe the founding of academic surgical units in the UK, and also present the key surgical ‘firsts’, breakthroughs and innovations realised at SMH in each of these realms. We finish with a look forwards to what the future holds for this institution and indeed the field of surgery as a whole.

The (academic) chair: Embodied relations of arrival, place, and hospitality

In this paper we move from considering the chair as an (inanimate) object, to exploring its vitality through a more vibrant and active reading of this inescapable everyday item. We are inspired by feminist new materialism and how affect shapes our understanding of matter. Reading matter in this way surfaces our orientations toward everyday items that show embodied practices of mattering. This, in turn, shines light on how we imbue objects with meaning, and how objects exceed these designations and categorisations to form new unbounded relations with the world. We focus on affective and symbolic meanings to consider different types of chairs, the spaces they occupy, and who comes to sit in them. For example, the empty chair expects an arrival; the occupied chair raises questions related to place and hospitality. Exploring whose bodies occupy an academic chair enables us to understand our embodied relationships with objects and work. We use personal experiences to engage in acts of experimental writing, reflecting on our lived experiences, and combining philosophical musings that bring the chair to life. By re-thinking our relationships to chairs, we invite the reader to resist the urge to dismiss them as mundane pieces of furniture worthy of only function or dismissal, and instead foster an openness that expands consideration of the material relations that travel across bodies and nonhuman kin.

Genre of Discours de réception: Marguerite Yourcenar’s Speech upon her Election to French Academy and Gender Turn

This article analyzes the inaugural speech (discours de réception) delivered in 1981 by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first female writer elected as a member of the French Academy. Since the 17th century, such speeches have been mandatory for newly elected academicians, serving as a communicative product of academic speech practice. The study notes that commemorative speeches in honor of deceased members of the academy typically involve the use of praise as an evaluative strategy. Following the genre’s requirements, Marguerite Yourcenar addresses the conceptual space of “the value of literary heritage” of Roger Caillois, whose “academic chair” she was about to occupy as a new academician. In his work, she identifies authorial conceptual metaphors (such as “life is a game”: vie — jeu) that align with her own value system, confirming this alignment with examples from her own books or life experience. The article highlights authorial conceptual oppositions, including men — women (homes / femmes), friendship — hatred (amitié / haine), and life — death (vie / mort). As a newly elected academician, Marguerite Yourcenar perceives the French Academy as a scientific institution with both merits (Académie — science, littérature, connaissance) and shortcomings (Académie — préjugés, archaїsme), reflecting her personal position as well as her gender and social identity.

“Let’s Take Care of the Caregivers”

In this paper, we present the findings of a project "Let's take care of the caregivers", an initiative carried out during the COVID-19 health crisis. The paper highlights first, the potential of experience design to identify the empathic, emotional challenges and assaults that caregivers have to cope with, and second, its capacity to design new work solutions and strategies that improve the lives of caregivers themselves. Moreover, the project also helped to structure a research program that will be developed through an academic chair devoted to the study of experience design in relation to transdisciplinary research in the fields of ethnography, medicine and management sciences. The ambition of the chair is to change managerial practices in care institutions (hospitals, nursing homes, hospices) and its potential for performance (Borja de Mozota 2001, 2010, 2014).

Broken engagement: The role of grit and LMX in enhancing faculty engagement

AbstractAs the roles of faculty members have continued to expand, leaders in higher education need a better understanding of the drivers of faculty engagement. The current paper develops and tests a hypothesized model of faculty engagement in which faculty member grit is positively related to faculty member engagement both directly and indirectly through faculty member–academic chair leader member exchange (LMX). Using a sample of 156 faculty members in a mid‐sized public university in the mid‐Atlantic region of the United States, we tested the hypothesized model using PROCESS Model 4 with 5000 boot‐strapped samples and a 95% confidence interval. Results show significant direct positive relationships between faculty member grit and faculty member engagement and between faculty member–academic chair LMX and faculty member engagement, but no significant indirect relationship of faculty member grit through LMX. Implications for higher education leaders are discussed, along with limitations and directions for future research.

Academic Chairs’ Leaderships Styles and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Higher Education Institutions in UAE

<p style="text-align:justify">This study aims to identify the dominant leadership styles of chairs from the perspective of faculty members in different college departments in higher education in the UAE. Furthermore, the study aims to identify the teachers' perceptions of leadership styles that affect their job satisfaction. The study used quantitative means with faculty members in different higher educational settings in the UAE. The survey used a five-point Likert scale. The leadership styles have values (completely agree =5, agree = 4, neutral =3, disagree=2, completely disagree=1). The job satisfaction questions have values (completely satisfied =5, satisfied = 4, fairly satisfied =3, dissatisfied =2, completely dissatisfied=1). The chosen subjects were faculty members from different colleges. Those subjects are 135 university teachers who are divided into four age groups. The data revealed no dominant leadership styles in the colleagues from faculty members' perspectives; however, the statistics lean towards the laissez-faire leadership style. It also reveals correlations between the three leadership styles and job satisfaction. The democratic leadership style has the greatest impact and most significant environment and incentives among the three independent variables.</p>

History of Japanese psychopathology: Portraits of the second-generation psychopathologists (Takeo Doi, Yomishi Kasahara, Hiroshi Yasunaga, Tadao Miyamoto, Bin Kimura, and Hisao Nakai) and their relationship to psychiatric reform movement in Japan.

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the history of Japanese psychopathology by presenting concise portraits of the second generation of Japanese psychopathologists, whose era is considered to be the heyday of Japanese psychopathology. Meanwhile, we also consider the historical background of the psychiatric reform movement in Japan that influenced many second-generation psychopathologists. First, the paper briefly discusses the emergence of the first-generation of psychopathologists through the adoption of German-centered psychiatry after the Meiji era. In general, the first-generation can be said to have laid the foundation for the independent development of psychopathology in Japan. Then came the second generation, at a time when the psychiatric reform movement was gaining momentum, with the Academic Chair System of the Faculty of Medicine (Ikyoku Kōzasei) heavily criticized, and psychiatric research itself halted temporarily. In order to continue the hampered academic research, workshops on "Psychopathology of Schizophrenia" were organized by the second-generation psychopathologists, whose major figures include Takeo Doi, Yomishi Kasahara, Hiroshi Yasunaga, Tadao Miyamoto, Bin Kimura, and Hisao Nakai. The invaluable contributions of the second-generation psychopathologists are essential to the development of Japanese psychopathology, and their close relationship with the psychiatric reform movement is worth reexamining, as it could be argued that the political tensions generated by the movement were the driving force behind their high-quality work.

University Governance and the Culture of Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Charcas

Abstract The article analyzes how the University of Charcas participated in public affairs in Chuquisaca (present-day Sucre) during the late colonial era. I show that following the Jesuit expulsion in the 1760s, the claustro (academic senate) became a center of university life. This body held annual elections to appoint the rector and passed governing rules for the university that allocated academic chairs based on public tenders. The faculty forcefully defended their newly gained autonomy from ecclesiastical and royal authorities, and its representative practices were instrumental in consolidating a culture of dissent that helped destabilize the unanimity principle underlying the monarchical imaginary, a principle that deemed nonconforming opinions a societal pathology incompatible with the sovereign's will and the common good. The rise of this contentious politics helped set the conditions for Chuquisaca's general uprising after the French invasion of Spain in 1808.

Inpatient boarding definitions and mitigation strategies: A cross-sectional survey of academic emergency departments in the United States

ObjectiveConceptually, inpatient boarding is a result in the delay of admitting patients from the Emergency Department (ED) to inpatient units, but there is no consistent definition across academic EDs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the definition of boarding across academic EDs, and to identify mitigation strategies used by EDs to alleviate crowd management. MethodsThis was a cross-sectional survey of boarding-related questions (i.e., boarding definitions and practices) that were embedded into the annual benchmarking survey conducted by the Academy of Academic Administrators of Emergency Medicine and the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine. Results were descriptively assessed and tabulated. ResultsOf the 130 eligible institutions, 68 participated in the survey. Approximately 70% of institutions reported starting the boarding clock at the time of ED admission, while 19% reported that the clock started with the completion of inpatient orders. Approximately 35% of institutions considered patients boarded within 2 h, while 34% considered patients boarded >4 h after admission decision. In response to ED overcrowding brought on by inpatient boarding, 35% reported using hallway beds for patient care. Surge capacity measures reported included having a high census/surge capacity plan (81%), going on ambulance diversion (54%), and institutional use of a discharge lounge (49%). ConclusionsWe found that definitions for boarding varied widely. Inpatient boarding has serious consequences to patient care and well-being, suggesting the need for standardized definitions to describe inpatient boarding.

Endowed Faculty Positions in Academic Emergency Medicine: 2021

BackgroundIn 2004, 2009, and 2014, we examined the number of endowed faculty positions in academic departments of emergency medicine (ADEMs). ObjectiveWe sought to survey ADEMs regarding the current number of endowed faculty positions and compare the results over time. MethodsA survey was emailed to the chairs of all ADEMs belonging to the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine or identified by the Association of American Medical Colleges. We requested the following information: number of endowed chairs and professorship positions; the amount required to fund; the amount allowed to be spent annually; the date established; and the names of the positions. ResultsOne hundred chairs responded out of a total of 109 ADEMs, for a response rate of 92%. Thirty-eight ADEMs (38%) reported having a total of 55 endowed chair positions. Twenty-six ADEMs (26%) reported having a total of 37 endowed professorships. The most common amount required to fund an endowed chair was $2 million to $2.5 million, and $1 million for an endowed professorship. The majority of ADEMs were allowed to spend 4–5% of the value of the endowment annually. ConclusionsForty-six individual ADEMs (46%) reported having at least one endowed faculty position compared with only 30 in 2014 and only 19 in 2009. The total number of endowed faculty positions in ADEMs was 92 in the current study compared with 53 in 2014, 25 in 2009, and only 9 in 2004.

Building a RAFFT: Impact of a professional development program for women faculty and residents in emergency medicine.

BackgroundWomen comprise 28% of faculty in academic departments of emergency medicine (EM) and 11% of academic chairs. Professional development programs for women are key to career success and to prevent pipeline attrition. Within emergency medicine, there is a paucity of outcomes‐level data for such programs.ObjectivesWe aim to measure the impact of a novel structured professional development curriculum and mentorship group (Resident and Faculty Female Tribe, or RAFFT) within an academic department of EM.MethodsThis prospective single‐center curriculum implementation and evaluation was conducted in the academic year 2020–2021. A planning group identified potential curricular topics using an iterative Delphi process. We developed a 10‐session longitudinal curriculum; a postcurriculum survey was conducted to assess the perceived benefit of the program in four domains.ResultsA total of 76% of 51 eligible women attended at least one session; for this project we analyzed the 24 participants (47%) who attended at least one session and completed both the pre‐ and the postsurvey. The majority of participants reported a positive benefit, which aligned with their expectations in the following areas: professional development (79.2%), job satisfaction (83.3%), professional well‐being (70.8%), and personal well‐being (79.2%). Resident physicians more often reported less benefit than expected compared to fellow/faculty physicians. Median perceived impact on career choice and trajectory was positive for all respondents.ConclusionsSuccess of this professional development program was measured through a perceived benefit aligning with participant expectations, a positive impact on career choice and career trajectory for participants in each career stage, and a high level of engagement in this voluntary program. Recommendations for the successful implementation of professional development programs include early engagement of stakeholders, the application of data from a program‐specific needs assessment, early dissemination of session dates to allow for protected time off, and structured discussions with appropriate identification of presession resources.

Assessing the Performance of Academic Chairs: A Leadership Approach

Academic chairs play an essential role within their educational institutions because they work closely with faculty, staff, and students to address important challenges. This research examines faculty perceptions about the organizational performance of their program chairs in one institution of higher education in Baja California, Mexico. The study was grounded on the Full Range Leadership model instrumented with the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The regression models suggest that organizational effectiveness, workplace satisfaction, and extra effort positively correlate with transformational and transactional leader behaviors. The models also suggest that these same outcomes negatively correlate with passive leadership. The main conclusion is that program chairs should aim to inspire faculty members to pursue positive change, clearly communicate performance expectations and rewards systems, and accept responsibility for the outcomes of their departments. This study is original because it offers educational institutions a replicable process to assess program chair performance as well as recommendations to improve the effectiveness of training and development programs.

Diversity of leadership in academic emergency medicine: Are we making progress?

BackgroundFaculty who identify as women or racial/ethnic groups underrepresented in medicine (URiM) are less likely to occupy senior leadership positions or be promoted. Recent attention has focused on interventions to decrease this gap; thus, we aim to evaluate changes in leadership and academic promotion for these populations over time. MethodsSuccessive cross-sectional observational study of six years (2015 to 2020) of data from the Academy of Administrators/Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine- Benchmark Survey. Primary analyses focused on gender/URiM differences in leadership roles and academic rank. Secondary analysis focused on disparities during the first 10 years of practice. Statistical modeling was conducted to address the primary aim of assessing differences in gender/URiM representation in EM leadership roles/rank over time. Results12,967 responses were included (4589 women, 8378 men). Women had less median years as faculty (7 vs 11). Women and URiM were less likely to hold a leadership role and had lower academic rank with no change over the study period. More women were consistently in the early career cohort (within 10 years or less as faculty) : 2015 =–75.0% [95% CI:± 3.8%] v 61.4% [95% CI:± 3.0%]; 2020 =–75.1% [95% CI: ± 2.9%] v 63.3%, [95% CI:: ± 2.5%]. Men were significantly more likely to have any leadership role compared to women in 2015 and 2020 (2015 = 54.3% [95% CI: ± 3.1%] v 44.8%, [95% CI: ± 4.3%]; 2020 = 43.1% [95% CI:± 2.5%] v 34.8 [95% CI:± 3.1%]). Higher academic rank (associate/professor) was significantly more frequent among early career men than women in 2015 (21.1% [95% CI:± 2.58%] v 12.9%; [95% CI:± 3.0%]) and 2020 (23.1% [95% CI:± 2.2%] v 17.4%; [95% CI:± 2.5%]). ConclusionsDisparities in women and URiM faculty leadership and academic rank persist, with no change over a six-year time span. Men early career faculty are more likely to hold leadership positions and be promoted to higher academic rank, suggesting early career inequities must be a target for future interventions.

Evaluation of burnout in physician members of the American Brachytherapy Society

PURPOSETo evaluate the prevalence of burnout among brachytherapy specialists and to identify factors associated with burnout. METHODS AND MATERIALSAn anonymous, online, cross-sectional survey was administered to non-trainee physician members of the American Brachytherapy Society. Burnout was evaluated using the validated Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). Demographic and practice-specific questions were collected from respondents. Univariate and multivariable analysis of outcomes were performed using probabilistic index models. RESULTSOverall, 51 of 400 physicians responded (13% response rate). Fifty-seven percent of respondents demonstrated at least one symptom of professional burnout. However, only 6% of respondents met strict criteria for high burnout. Analysis of the individual MBI-HSS subdomains demonstrated higher subscale scores for emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, but also higher scores for personal accomplishment. On multivariable analysis after adjusting for increased feelings of burnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic or total hours of work per week, younger age was associated with both increased subscale scores for emotional exhaustion (p = 0.026) and lower personal accomplishment (p = 0.010). Lastly, nearly half of all respondents (47%) reported increased feelings of burnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents from academic facilities were significantly more likely to report increased burnout due to COVID-19 compared to those from non-academic facilities (odds ratio, 7.04; 95% CI 1.60–31.0; p = 0.010). CONCLUSIONSNearly 60% of brachytherapists demonstrated symptoms of professional burnout, which is higher than other radiation oncology groups (academic chairs, program directors, residents). Managing stressors related to workload, COVID and support for junior physicians are potential areas for improving feelings of burnout.

Institutional solutions addressing disparities in compensation and advancement of emergency medicine physicians: A critical appraisal of gaps and associated recommendations.

Disparities in salary and advancement of emergency medicine (EM) faculty by race and gender have been consistently demonstrated for over three decades. Prior studies have largely focused on individual-level solutions. To identify systems-based interventions, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) formed the Research Equity Task Force in 2018 with members from multiple academies (the Academy of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine [AACEM], the Academy of Academic Administrators in Emergency Medicine [AAAEM], the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine [AWAEM], and the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine [ADIEM]) and sought recommendations from EM departmental leaders. The task force conducted interviews containing both open-ended narrative and closed-ended questions in multiple phases. Phase 1 included a convenience sample of chairs of EM departments across the United States, and phase 2 included vice-chairs and other faculty who lead promotion and advancement. The task force identified common themes from the interviews and then developed three-tiered sets of recommendations (minimal, target, and aspirational) based on participant responses. In phase 3, iterative feedback was collected and implemented on these recommendations from study participants and chairs participating in a national AACEM webinar. In findings from 53 interviews of chairs, vice-chairs, and faculty leaders from across the United States, we noted heterogeneity in the faculty development and promotion processes across institutions. Four main themes were identified from the interviews: the need for a directed, structured promotion process; provision of structured mentorship; clarity on requirements for promotion within tracks; and transparency in salary structure. Recommendations were developed to address gaps in structured mentorship and equitable promotion and compensation. These recommendations for AEM departments have the potential to increase structured mentorship programs, improve equity in promotion and advancement, and reduce disparities in the AEM workforce. These recommendations have been endorsed by SAEM, AACEM, AWAEM, ADIEM, and AAAEM.

Advanced practice providers in academic emergency medicine: A national survey of chairs and program directors.

The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Board of Directors convened a task force to elucidate the current state of workforce, operational, and educational issues being faced by academic medical centers related to advanced practice providers (APPs). The task force surveyed academic emergency department (ED) chairs and residency program directors (PDs). The survey was distributed to the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine (AACEM)-member chairs and their respective residency PDs in 2021. We surveyed 125 chairs with their self-identified PDs. The survey sampled hiring, state-independent practice laws, scope of practice, teaching and supervision, training opportunities, delegation of procedures between physician learners and APPs, and perceptions of the impact on resident and medical student education. Of the AACEM-member chairs identified, 73% responded and 47% of PDs responded. Most (98%) employ either physician assistants or nurse practitioners. Among responding departments, 86% report APPs working in fast-track settings, 80% work in the main ED, and 54% work in the waiting room. In 44% of departments, APPs and residents evaluate patients concurrently, and 2% of respondents reported that APPs manage high-acuity patients without attending involvement. Two-thirds of chairs believe that APPs contribute positively to the quality of patient care, while 44% believe that APPs contribute to the academic environment. One-third of PDs believe that the presence of APPs interferes with resident education. Although 75% of PDs believe that residents require training to work effectively with APPs in the ED, almost half (49%) report zero hours of training around APP supervision or collaborative skills. APPs are ubiquitous across academic EDs. Future research is required for academic ED leaders to balance physician and APP deployment across the academic ED within the context of patient care, resident education, institutional resources, professional development opportunities for APP staff, and standardization of APP EM training.

Salary disparities based on gender in academic emergency medicine leadership.

There are significantly fewer women than men in leadership roles in health care. Previous studies have shown that, overall, male physicians earn nearly $20,000 more annually than their female physician colleagues after adjusting for confounding factors. However, there has not been a description of physician leadership compensation in relation to gender. This was a successive cross-sectional observation study design of 154 emergency departments in the United States from 5years (2013, 2015-2018) using Association of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine and Academy of Administrators in Academic EM survey data. The primary variable of interest, leadership role, was attained by recoding the survey responses to assign primary job duty into four main categories: no leadership role, operations leadership, education leadership, and executive leadership. Overall, 8820 responses were included. Across all survey years, the mean (±SD) percentage of women in any leadership role was significantly less than men (44.5% [95% CI: 42.8, 46.2%] vs. 55.3% [95% CI: 54.1, 56.5%]). Women in leadership roles worked more clinical hours than men in the same position (female median=1008, male median=960). Women also had significantly lower salaries than men at each of the 5-year time points that data are reported, with unadjusted mean salary differences of -$54,409 per year for executives, -$27,803 for operational leaders, and -$17,803 for education leaders. Female physicians hold fewer leadership roles in academic emergency medicine (EM), and when they do, they work more clinical hours and are paid less than male physicians. As a specialty, EM should continue to investigate and report on gender achievement disparities as work is done to rectify the system inequalities.

The jury is out: a new approach to awarding science prizes

Research evaluation is often understood as something similar to a competition, where an evaluation panel’s task is to award the most excellent researchers. This interpretation is challenging, in as far as excellence it is at best a multi-dimensional concept and at worst an ill-defined term because it assumes that there exists some ground truth as to who the very best researchers are and all that an evaluation panel needs to do is uncover this ground truth. Therefore, instead of focusing on competition, the Swiss National Science Foundation focused on active decision-making and sought inspiration in the deliberation proceedings of a jury trial for the design of a new evaluation procedure of an academic award. The new evaluation procedure is based upon fully anonymised documents consisting of three independent parts (achievements, impact and prominence). Before the actual evaluation meeting, the panel, which includes non-academic experts, pre-evaluates all nominations through a pseudo-randomly structured network, such that every nomination is reviewed by six members of the panel only. Evaluation decisions are based upon anonymous votes, structured discussions in the panel, ranking as opposed to rating of nominees and data-rich figures providing an overview of the positioning of the nominee along various dimensions and the ranking provided by the individual panel members. The proceedings are overseen by an academic chair, focusing on content, and a procedural chair, focusing on the process and compliance. Combined, these elements form a highly-structure deliberation procedure, consisting of individual steps, through which nominations proceed and which each either feed into the next step or into the final verdict. The proposed evaluation process has been successfully applied in the real world in the evaluation of the Swiss Science Prize Marcel Benoist, Switzerland’s most prestigious academic award.