There are three categories under the Award, i.e. (1) General Faculty Members (open to individuals only); (2) Early Career Faculty Members (open to individuals only); and (3) Collaborative Teams. There will be a maximum of three awardees in total, and the Selection Panel reserves the right to give out less than three awards. There will be no more than one award in each category.

Each UGC-funded university may submit no more than three nominations in total. There should be no more than one nomination from each university for each Award category. Any nominee should be included in only one of the three Award categories and be included in only one university’s nomination.

The Award is “discipline-neutral”, i.e. universities may nominate individuals/teams from any discipline. All nominees should not have received a UGC Teaching Award as an individual or as the team leader/member of a winning team in the past five years, except that previous recipients of a UGC Teaching Award in individual categories (i.e. General Faculty Members and Early Career Faculty Members) within the last five years are eligible for nomination as team leader/member in the Collaborative Teams category.

(1) General Faculty Members 

The nominees should be full-time staff (excluding visiting staff) with teaching duties which focus primarily on UGC-funded programmes (i.e. the majority of the courses in terms of number or hours taught by the nominees are UGC-funded).

(2) Early Career Faculty Members

The nominees should have no more than six years of teaching experience in higher education institutions as at the closing date for nomination. The length of teaching experience is counted on a semester basis and can be non-sequential. The nominee should be a full-time staff (excluding visiting staff) with teaching duties which focus primarily on UGC-funded programmes.

(3) Collaborative Teams

The nominated teams should be inter-disciplinary (i.e. involving more than one department within a UGC-funded university) and/or interinstitutional (i.e. involving more than one UGC-funded university). A team comprising only members from the same department may also be nominated providing that its pedagogical work possesses strong potential for application beyond the disciplinary and institutional boundaries. A team leader should be designated and the nominated team may comprise a maximum of five members including the team leader. For a team comprising members from more than one UGC-funded university, the nomination will be regarded as submitted by the team leader’s university. Each nominated team must include at least one full-time teaching staff (excluding visiting staff) with teaching duties focusing primarily on UGC-funded programmes. The team may also include other academic and/or support staff (including teaching assistants) employed on a full-time or part-time basis.

All nominees for the Award will be assessed based on the following three criteria -

(a) Adoption of learner-centred approaches, ability to engage/inspire/impact on students and demonstration of superior acumen in teaching, which may include a good understanding of pedagogy, understanding how students learn and adopting suitable teaching and assessment approaches that can achieve better student learning outcomes; being able to interact with students and engage them in learning with enthusiasm; inspiring and supporting students, with respect for their diverse learning needs, to build confidence and capability (including critical thinking, analytical skills, values, etc.); and outstanding classroom teaching (in face-to-face, virtual or hybrid settings).

(b) Course/programme/curriculum design that can reflect a command of the field, which may include demonstrating up-to-date knowledge of the field of study in the design of the curriculum and student learning resources (e.g., textbooks, e-learning resources) and adopting complementary research-informed teaching practices; and developing appropriate student learning outcomes and adopting innovative approaches to teaching and assessment which can facilitate students’ achievement of the learning outcomes etc., at/within an institutional, inter-institutional or sector-wide level.

(c) Past/present achievement(s) and leadership in teaching and potential scholarly contribution to and impact on the development of effective teaching practice within the nominee(s)’ own university and/or in other institutions, which may include demonstrating educational research and innovations in the field of study; and demonstrating leadership and evidence-based impact in the promotion of teaching excellence within and across disciplines and/or universities. In the case of early career faculty nominations, the focus will be on the nominees’ potential of leadership in teaching as well as their past achievements. In the case of team nominations, the contribution of each of the team members, as well as the scale and complexity of impact of the team’s collaborative work on the development of effective teaching practice at/within an institutional, inter-institutional or sector-wide level will be considered. Each team member’s contribution in propagating the impact of their collaborative endeavours within his/her own university will also be taken into consideration. In addition, universities are also welcome to include examples of other prior collaborations among team members in the nomination materials (if the team is nominated for a specific project) but new and innovative collaborative initiatives are also encouraged.
 

All nominations will be considered by the Selection Panel, which will comprise:

(i) A Chairperson (who shall be a member of UGC/QAC)

(ii) An academic member of UGC/QAC
(iii) A lay member of UGC/QAC
(iv) A former recipient of the UGC Teaching Award
(v) An External International Expert

The Panel will consider the nominations based on the nomination package submitted, and shortlist a number of nominated individuals/teams as the finalists to attend an interview. 

The awardees and the finalists, i.e. those nominees who are shortlisted for the selection interview but not selected for an award, will be announced at the 2024 Award presentation ceremony and carried in the UGC’s press release.

Obligations of the Awardees

The awardees will become “ambassadors of good teaching” in their universities as well as the entire UGC sector.  Awardees may be invited to present their teaching philosophies and share experiences at, among other occasions, the Presentation Ceremony of the UGC Teaching Award to be held in Autumn 2024, as well as in the video programme to be produced by the UGC for publicising awardees’ contribution and achievements.

The awardees will also be invited to participate in activities of the Hong Kong Teaching Excellence Alliance (HKTEA), an organisation established with funding support from the UGC with the aim to cultivate a network to enable UGC Teaching Award Fellows to collectively play a sustained role in promoting teaching excellence in and beyond the UGC sector.

Universities are invited to submit for each nomination a completed nomination form and other relevant information.  For details, please refer to https://www.ugc.edu.hk/doc/eng/qac/teach/2024_UGC_Teaching_Award_Guidelines.pdf.