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HDR Student Publication Excellence Awards

The awards are designed to encourage UniSQ higher degree by research students to make strategic decisions about the journals in which they seek to publish, to help them get the best return on their research efforts and as a crucial step in improving the overall research performance of UniSQ.

Dr Barbara Harmes Memorial Prize for Research Publication Excellence

Established in 2023 through the generosity of the Harmes family, the prize was created to honour the life and work of Dr Barbara Harmes. Barbara was an alumna and staff member of over 30 years at UniSQ, during which time she positively impacted the lives of many students at the University and UniSQ College. In her position as Higher Degree Research Language Learning Advisor she contributed to the success of many theses and journal articles. This endowed award commemorates Barbara by supporting Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students with the highest SNIP in the previous year.

The winner of the inaugral Dr Barbara Harmes Memorial Prize for Research Publication Excellence is Minu Saratchandra for the article titled “Building Knowledge Ambidexterity Using Cloud Computing: Longitudinal Case Studies of SMEs Experiences” published in the International Journal of Information Management, which has a SNIP value of 5.416. 
Co-authors were Dr. Anup Shrestha and Prof. Peter A. Murray. Minu wins an award of $1000 to be used at her discretion.

HDR Student Publication Excellence Awards

Eligibility and Criteria

  • Awards are open to all UniSQ Higher Degree by Research students.
  • Article must have been published in electronic or print format during 2023.
  • Article must include a UniSQ by-line and be recognised by the ERA 2018 Submission Guidelines as a journal article.
  • The student must be first author.  
  • Applicants with multiple papers during a publication period should submit the paper with the highest SNIP, as only one article will be accepted per period.   
  • SNIP values are used to determine rankings.
  • A UniSQ Higher Degree by Research student may win only one award per year.
  • Supervisors may be co-authors on more than one winning article.

Prizes

An award Certificate, plus:

  • $1000 for the Winner
  • $500 for 2nd place
  • $250 for 3rd place

Prize money to be spent on research-related activities during 2024. If a prize winner ceases to be an active student for any reason, all outstanding funds will be forfeited.

The awards for journal articles published in 2023 opened on 4 January and will close on 15 February 2024.

Applications are in the form of an email sent to the Research Training team, with "Student Publication Excellence Award" in the subject heading field. Applicants must attach an electronic copy of their research paper.  

The winners of the 2023 HDR Student Publication Excellence Awards for journal articles published in 2022 were finalised in early April 2023. The Graduate Research School is delighted to announce the winners.

The winner is Matthew Squires for an article titled ‘A Novel Genetic Algorithm Based System for the Scheduling of Medical Treatments’ in Expert Systems With Applications. Co-authors were Xiaohui Tao, Soman Elangovan, Raj Gururajan, Xujuan Zhou and Udyavara Rajendra Acharya. Matthew wins an award of $1000 to be used for research-related activities.

There is a tie for 1st Runner up:

  • Cherie O’Sullivan for an article titled ‘Pattern Recognition Describing Spatio-Temporal Drivers of Catchment Classification for Water Quality’ in Science of the Total Environment. Co-authors were Afshin Ghahramani, Ravinesh C. Deo and Keith G. Pembleton. Cherie wins an award of $375 to be used for research-related activities.
  • Kishor Aryal for an article titled ‘Transforming Agroforestry in Contested Landscapes: A win-win Solution to Trade-offs in Ecosystem Services in Nepal’ in Science of the Total Environment. Co-authors were Tek Maraseni and Armando Apan. Kishor wins an award of $375 to be used for research-related activities.

The winners of the 2022 HDR Student Publication Excellence Awards for journal articles published in 2021 were finalised in early March 2022. The Graduate Research School is delighted to announce the winners.

The winner is India Bryce for an article titled ‘A Systematic Literature Review of the Career Choice of Helping Professionals Who Have Experienced Cumulative Harm as a Result of Adverse Childhood Experiences’ in Trauma, Violence & Abuse. India wins an award of $1000 to be used for research-related activities.

1st Runner up is Susan Abel for an article titled ‘Social Media, Rituals, and Long-Distance Family Relationship Maintenance: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review’ in New Media and Society. Susan wins an award of $500 to be used for research-related activities.

2nd runner up is Siddique Latif for an article titled ‘Survey of Deep Representation Learning for Speech Emotion Recognition’ in IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. Siddique wins an award of $250 to be used for research-related activities.