Article/Chapter (ECR) Award

2023 Award applications closed on Friday 3 March, 2023

The ALRA ECR Article/Chapter Award category recognises the contribution of early career academics in producing a discrete research output – whether journal article or book chapter. The objective of this prize is to recognise research excellence in the publication of journal articles or book chapters which make an outstanding contribution to the legal field.

The recipient of the ALRA ECR Article/Chapter Award will receive a $1000 prize (to be shared between multiple applicants if there is more than one author) and an award certificate.  The 2023 Awards will be awarded at the annual conference of the Australasian Law Academics Association (‘AALA’). 

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Eligibility requirements

To be eligible for the 2023 ALRA ECR Article/Chapter Award, the applicant must meet the following criteria:

1. The applicant’s Associate Dean of Research (ADR) or equivalent supports the application.
2. The subject matter of the publication must be at least 66% within Field of Research code 48 (Law and Legal Studies) as assessed by the relevant institution in accordance with ARC guidelines.
3. The applicant must be an academic staff member at a CALD member law school (or equivalent) where that staff member is employed at least 0.4 FTE at the time of the application (“employment requirement”). Alternatively, the applicant may be a Higher Degree by Research student at a CALD member law school (or equivalent).
4. The applicant must have been an early career researcher at the time of the publication (“ECR requirement”). Generally, an applicant will be eligible to apply where that application is made within five years of the conferral date of their PhD or equivalent research higher degree. An applicant will also be considered an early career researcher where they are currently undertaking a research higher degree, provided they have not been employed as an academic for more than 10 years.
5. The assessment of eligibility will be guided by the ARC eligible career interruption policy.
6. For co-authored works, at least 50% of all authors must be eligible in accordance with employment requirement, and all applicants must meet the ECR requirement.
7. The article or chapter must satisfy the HERDC definition of research and experimental development (eg, book chapters are eligible if they satisfy the HERDC requirement).
8. For the 2023 Award, the chapter must have been published between 3 March 2022 and 2 March 2023.
9. Each publication can be nominated only once.
10. An applicant (and their co-authors) can only apply in one category.

The final determination of any eligibility shall be assessed by the relevant Award Panel for the given award.

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Application and nomination process

The application for the 2023 ALRA ECR Article/Chapter Award must be accompanied by an application form:

1. confirming that the application complies with the above eligibility requirements;
2. summarising the work, and outlining its significance and contribution to the relevant legal discipline; and
3. outlining why this work represents an outstanding example of legal scholarship, such that it would be a worthy recipient of the ECR Article/Chapter Award.

All applications must be supported by the relevant Associate Dean of Research in Law (or functional equivalent) (the ‘ADR’) at the institution where the applicant is employed. Generally, no more than five applications can be supported by any School. 

All applications should include an electronic PDF version of the publication so as to enable the efficient review and assessment of the publication.