Aitken prize

The Society offers a prize for the best contributed talk by a student at the annual New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium. This prize is known as the Aitken Prize, in honour of the New Zealand born mathematician Alexander Craig Aitken. The Prize was first offered at the 1995 Colloquium held in conjunction with the Aitken Centenary Conference at the University of Otago. Candidates for the Prize give a talk on a topic in any branch of the mathematical sciences.

Eligibility. To be eligible, a candidate must be enrolled (or have been enrolled) for a degree in Mathematics at a university or other tertiary institution in New Zealand in the year of the award. The prize consists of NZ$500, accompanied by a certificate. Candidates should indicate their willingness to be considered for the Prize on the Colloquium registration form.

A judging panel is appointed by the NZMS President. The panel makes recommendations to the President for the Prize. Normally the Prize will be awarded to one person, but in exceptional circumstances the Prize may be shared, or no prize may be awarded.

The prize consists of a cheque for NZ$500, accompanied by a certificate.

COVID

NZMS recognises that the effects of COVID lockdowns and other disruptions on research capacity have been unequally distributed. To ameliorate this, the prize committee determining our research awards will take unequal opportunity loss due to COVID disruption into account. To facilitate this consideration candidates are invited to submit a half page description of the effect that COVID related disruption has had on their research output. Submitting this description is voluntary and, as with all other application materials, the information revealed is protected by our privacy policy.

Policy relating to COVID will be updated as appropriate at the beginning of each calendar year.

Conflict of Interest

(Note: these have been adapted from rules used by the Royal Society for managing conflict of interest with Marsden Panel members.)

An assessor, referee, committee member or convenor has a potential conflict of interest if:

• they are a supervisor, partner, spouse or a family member of any applicant(s)

• they work in the same team or department of any applicant(s)

• they have co-authored publications with the applicant(s) in the past five years

• they have a low level of comfort assessing the application due to their relationship with the applicant(s)

An assessor with a potential conflict of interest will not be asked to evaluate the application.

If a committee member has a potential conflict of interest, they must discuss the conflict with the convenor. The convenor will decide whether or not the committee member can continue with their role.

If the convenor has a potential conflict of interest, they must discuss the conflict with the NZMS president. The president will decide whether the duties of convening be passed to another member. Disputes regarding conflict of interest will be resolved by the convenor and, if necessary, the NZMS president.

Privacy Act

All applications and reference letters are to be treated as confidential. They are to be accessed only by the members of the prize committee or accreditation committee and, where necessary, the NZMS president.

The NZMS president and convenor of the committee may keep a secure copy of all applications and reference letters for a maximum of one year following the conclusion of the assessment process. This is solely for the purpose of

• Resolving any disputes

• Allowing applicants to reapply with the same reference letters.

Note that invitations to assessors and referees must make it clear that letters will be retained for these purposes.

All other committee or panel members must delete all application files and reference letters immediately following the conclusion of the assessment process.

Recipients of the Kalman prize