Chancellor’s Innovation Awards Require Collaboration and Vision

Have an idea that could help move our campus forward? Then this year’s Chancellor’s Innovation Awards are for you.

The competition is set up to reward employee teams for transformative ideas that align with UC Merced’s vision for the future. The contest was created by Chancellor Dorothy Leland in 2015 to to encourage team work and to facilitate conversations about process improvement among staff.

“Many of our employees have a long list of accomplishments and valuable skills outside of their UC Merced job descriptions,” Leland said. “It’s my hope that by making the awards a team competition, staff will feel empowered to collaborate with colleagues from a variety of units.”

Proposed concepts must fall under one of the following five categories, which are aligned with priorities on the campus’s Vision and Change Alignment map and Workforce Planning Initiative work groups:

• Research Excellence
• Academic Distinction
• Student Success
• General Services and Support
• Organizational Sustainability

Entries will be judged based on creativity and innovation, impact, and the feasibility of replication and scale. This year’s Innovation Awards require participants to work in teams to submit a proposal. To enter, teams must submit proposals online by 5 p.m. April 14. Up to 10 finalists will be notified by mid-May and invited to submit a short video presentation on their concept.

Faculty, students and staff will be able to view and comment on the proposals during the review period. A judging panel, appointed by Leland, will select the top three proposals. The team that takes first place will share a $5,000 prize, the second-place team will receive $2,500 and third place will receive $1,000. The contest is only open to non-student staff.

Questions regarding the 2017 Chancellor’s Innovation Awards can be sent to innovationawards@ucmerced.edu .