FORUM 86 is a non-profit and non-political organization. Its members are those individuals who were enrolled as undergraduate students at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in the 1986-87 sessions. The organization is engaged in a wide spectrum of activities such as (but not limited to): providing cultural, intellectual, social, spiritual and charitable welfare to the members of Forum 86, providing welfare to BUET and the society, providing charity to the needy people, encouraging research and innovation, facilitating technology transfer, and providing academic and professional assistance to BUET alumni and students. Since it’s establishment, FORUM 86 has been promoting exchange of professional knowledge with a wide range of groups, organizations and individuals by arranging seminars, symposiums, etc. Since 2020, FORUM 86 started promoting research activities within BUET and beyond through a bi-annual “Research Excellence Award” to BUET students, faculty members and researchers.
FORUM 86 believes that its Research Excellence Award will be able to highlight the research achievements (e.g., publishing papers in quality journals/peer reviewed highly selective conferences, supervising Masters/PhD students, engaging in research-related professional activities, etc.) of faculty members of BUET and at the same time raise the profile of the research teams or individuals who would be encouraged to serve the society through scholarly activities as well as could be considered for future external recognition(s).
Faculty members in any discipline from BUET can apply for this award (excluding FORUM 86 members). Two types of awards will be given: (a) Early career research award, and (b) Senior faculty research award.
To be eligible for the early career research award, a BUET faculty member (excluding FORUM 86 members) should be within 10 years of obtaining PhD degree at the time of application.
For senior faculty research award, any BUET faculty member (excluding FORUM 86 members) who received PhD degree more than 10 years ago will be considered. Faculty members and students those awarded before will not be considered for this call.
The “FORUM 86 Research Excellence Award” will recognize research achievements of the eligible BUET faculty members. The research under consideration for the award should have demonstrated considerable positive impact on the society and also preferably have high impact at the international level. While the published works of the last two years would be given preference, other forms of scholarly outputs would be considered too. Research Excellence Awards will recognize research achievements of faculty members. Research excellence is recognized as scholarly output that made an impact within the nominee’s discipline. This will include papers/patents/books published in the last two years, any research-related knowledge mobilization, research-derived innovation, training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) (e.g. supervising Masters/PhD students), etc. Generally, following major points will be considered for evaluation for the award (not limited to though):
- Last two years published works;
- Quality of the research;
- Research Impact to benefit the society;
- Contribution to training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) of Bangladesh ;
- Research-related knowledge dissemination;
- External research funding from National/International Organizations
- International research collaboration; and
- Industry-academia collaboration/ Inter-disciplinaryworks
Each Research Excellence Award recipient will receive an award certificate as well as a prize money of BDT 100,000 (Taka One Hundred thousand). Each Awardee will also be requested to nominate up to three students name who have the contributions for the research. Recipients and students will be recognized at the annual Research Excellence Award program to be organized by FORUM 86.
There will be 5 awards for early carrier researchers and 3 awards for senior faculty researchers from all Engineering, Science, Architecture and other disciplines of BUET. Therefore, a total of 8 awards will be given bi-annually (from the date of selection).
The concerned BUET faculty member applying for the “FORUM 86 Research Excellence Award 2024” needs to be submitted the following documents to the FORUM 86 Secretariat within the announced deadline. The candidate needs to upload all documents as a one pdf file via online: https://easychair.org/cfp/content.cgi?a=32201687
- A cover letter (1 page);
- Statements of Researcher including proposed work (maximum 1 page);
- Copies of documents supporting the case for the application (materials that the candidate wishes to use as evidence of excellence in research and other scholarly activities);
- Applicant’s CV (highlighting past and current scholarly activities).
An external international committee, consisting of outstanding researchers and professionals will review the applications and provide recommendations to the FORUM 86 Executive Committee who will make the final selection.