Nominations are open from now until 15 March for the 2024 IAU Astronomy Outreach, Development and Education (ODE) Prizes. Launched in 2022, these prizes recognise individuals and organisations who have made outstanding contributions to astronomy outreach, development, or education. They are awarded every three years at the IAU General Assembly. The 2024 round of awards will be presented at the IAU XXXII General Assembly (IAU GA 2024), which will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 6 to 15 August 2024.

The IAU ODE Prizes may honour either lifetime achievements or major one-off projects. Eligible candidates shall be professional scientists, educators, science communicators or capacity-builders. Individual IAU members and non-members are eligible, as well as small teams or organisations. However, directors or employees of IAU Offices are not eligible while they are in office. Particular consideration will be given to people who are less well known but have performed excellent service in the domains of the awards.

The areas of the three prizes are defined roughly as follows:

• Education: formal astronomy training at K–12, undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
• Outreach: public astronomy communication and informal education. This includes but is not limited to, disciplines of informal astronomy education, media relations, audiovisuals, marketing, planetariums, museums, publishing, social media, storytelling, and application development for the web.
• Development: use of astronomy as a tool for development and capacity-building, especially in underserved areas and regions.

Each area has a selection committee consisting of three to four people. An overarching ‘super-committee’ consisting of an independent chair (this year, Ewine van Dishoeck) plus the chairs from each of the three committees will receive the top-ranked nominations from the committees and will make the final decisions.

Anyone may submit nominations, but self-nominations will not be accepted, and members of the ODE committees cannot be nominated.

The nominator should submit: 

• a letter explaining in detail the specific contributions and achievements of the person or team nominated for the prize (maximum two pages);
• a brief CV or narrative of the person or team being nominated (maximum three pages);
• one additional letter of support from another person (maximum two pages).

All material should be uploaded in PDF format by the nominator.

The ODE super-committee will submit its selections for the three prizes to the IAU Executive Committee for final approval, after which the winners will be contacted and announced in a press release on the IAU webpage. The winners will receive a monetary prize of €5000 and will be invited to attend the IAU General Assembly in August 2024 for the prize ceremony, with registration, travel, and accommodation provided by the IAU.

The IAU ODE Prizes were created with generous funding from IAU Past President Ewine van Dishoeck. 

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12 000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

Links

• Submit nominations by 15 March 2024 (23:59 UTC+1)
• IAU Astronomy Outreach, Development and Education (ODE) Prizes

Contacts

Piero Benvenuti
IAU Interim General Secretary
Email: IAU-general.secretary@iau.org 

Ewine F. van Dishoeck
Past President and Advisor of the Executive Committee
Email: ewine@strw.leidenuniv.nl 

Lina Canas
IAU Membership Coordinator
Email: lina.canas@iau.org 

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Director of Communications
Cell: +1 520 461 0433/+49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars.christensen@noirlab.edu