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Awards - Down Syndrome Research Forum 2027

This year, we are introducing three awards to recognise important contributions to research and practice that impact the lives of people with Down syndrome. The Research Forum Committee will score the abstracts entered for each award using the criteria on this page. The highest-scoring entries will receive the awards.

Awards and eligibility

The 2027 Down Syndrome Research Forum aims to encourage both researchers and practitioners. The awards are:

  • Outstanding Student Research Award, for a current undergraduate or postgraduate student, or a recent graduate (graduated in the last year) presenting research collected while a student. The student must be the lead author and the presenter.
  • Early Career Research Award, for a researcher in the first 5 years of their career after completing their PhD. They must be the lead author and the presenter.
  • Impact Award for Best Applied Presentation, for a non-research, clinical or community presentation, for example by a community organisation, parent, self-advocate or practitioner.

Each presentation in a symposium can be considered on its own, but a symposium as a whole cannot.

Award winners will receive a certificate, be acknowledged at the forum, be listed on the website as an award winner, and receive free or discounted registration.

Entering for an award

When you create or edit your presentation, choose the award you would like it to be considered for. You will be asked whether the lead author is a student or whether the presentation is an applied presentation. For the Early Career Research Award, you will also be asked the year the lead author earned their PhD.

Entering for an award is voluntary. You do not need to enter for an award to submit a presentation, and entering does not affect whether your presentation is selected for the forum.

Scoring

Committee members score each abstract on each criterion for its award. They give scores only and do not write a review.

Each criterion is scored from 1 to 9, where higher scores are better:

  • 9: exceptional, with essentially no weaknesses
  • 8: outstanding
  • 7: excellent
  • 6: very good
  • 5: good
  • 4: satisfactory
  • 3: fair
  • 2: marginal
  • 1: poor, with numerous major weaknesses

Research awards

The Outstanding Student Research Award and the Early Career Research Award are scored on 4 criteria:

  • Significance. The importance of the research: whether it can advance the field, address a gap in knowledge or solve a critical problem.
  • Originality. Whether the research applies novel concepts, methods or technologies, or uses existing ones in novel ways.
  • Scientific rigour. The scientific quality of the work and the likelihood that it will produce compelling, reproducible findings.
  • Potential impact. Whether the findings will or could have a real-world impact for people with Down syndrome, their families or the people who work with them, or for policy or practice.

Impact Award

The Impact Award for Best Applied Presentation is similarly scored on 4 criteria:

  • Significance. The importance of the work: whether it addresses an important gap in the field or solves a critical problem.
  • Originality. Whether the work applies novel concepts, methods or technologies, or uses existing ones in novel ways.
  • Professional rigour. The quality of the work as practice: whether it is carefully planned and delivered, draws on evidence and recognised good practice, and monitors or evaluates its outcomes.
  • Potential impact. Whether the work is having, or could have, a real-world impact for people with Down syndrome, their families or the people who work with them, or for policy or practice.

Selecting the winners

Each reviewer's scores for an abstract are added together, giving a total between 4 and 36. We then take the average of these totals across reviewers. The highest-scoring entries for each award will be the winners.

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