Outstanding Paper Award in Physiology/Ecophysiology
Description: This is an award that the Physiological and Ecophysiological Section will give every 2-3 years to honor excellent plant physiology and ecophysiology research published in a BSA journal (i.e., AJB or APPS). Our goal is to highlight transformational and high impact publications in BSA journals and attract more highly important publications to these journals. Also we intend to raise the profile of researchers in our field especially those with integrated research. The winner of the award will be selected by a committee of 3 (post-tenure) scientists representing a range of expertise across plant physiology and/or ecophysiology (see Award Committee section below). The committee will prioritize novel research, new approaches, and techniques which hold promise for wide-spread application. Research, meta-analyses and reviews with depth of concept, and method articles will be considered for this award. Review articles will not be considered. The lead of the selected publication will receive the amount the BSA society has accrued due to the baseline asset in the account over the 2 or 3 years.
Award Committee: Nominations for referees to serve on the award committee will be requested at the annual meeting every 2-3 years. The section leadership will select 3 referees from those nominated which includes selecting a chair for the committee. Referees will take the required BSA training on implicit bias and will not be able to review papers when there is a conflict of interest. The Chair of the Committee is expected to serve in this position for two award cycles (4-6 years of total service).
Timeline: We plan to have the first cycle for this award start in 2026. In the fall, the Section Leadership and Chair of the Award Committee will provide a list of keywords to the BSA Director of Publications to aid in selecting articles to be considered for the award. By January, the Chair will send papers out to the referees to review. One month before the annual conference, the Chair will forward the results of the review to the Section Leadership. The award will be announced at the annual conference.
Review process: The referees will receive a rubric developed by the Leadership of the Section and the Committee Chair for “Publication of Excellence”. The goal is to judge the quality of individual papers. The award will go to the first author and will not be split among co-authors. BSA journals use the CRediT taxonomy and individual contributions will be considered by the Award Committee.
Review criteria
Originality: Does the article include new and original research, approaches, conclusions, integration of knowledge and/or techniques? The goal is to select potentially high-impact articles rather than research or reviews which confirm previous findings or research which applies similar questions and protocols to yet another new system.
Contribution to the field: What is the importance and relevance of the research to the broader fields of plant physiology and ecophysiology? We will prioritize research that addresses foundational questions in these two fields.
Importance to broader community and current issues: Is this research more broadly significant to other areas of botanical research or important issues in botany? The highest ranked papers will have broader impacts on society and to botany in general.