Skip to Content

THOMAS SCHNEIDER COMMUNITY IMPACT RESEARCH AWARD

The Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award, to be introduced at the 2025 CAAA Conference, is established to honour the memory of Professor Thomas Schneider, a dear colleague and fellow CAAA member who passed away suddenly in June 2023. Tom was a proud and involved CAAA member, and an inspiring academic whose research focused on how accounting can positively impact our world. The Award will recognize an accounting research project that follows Tom’s inspiration by bringing attention to the important current challenges of environmental and social well being of our communities.

PURPOSE

The Award is intended to spotlight scholarly thinking and research in Canada that follow Tom’s inspiration by bringing attention to the most pressing questions of our day and have improved our communities, environment and society.  The selection process will focus on projects that illuminate the interplay between accounting and societal outcomes including social and environmental impacts. Importantly, the winning project will be selected for the questions it asks to advance accounting thought for the benefit of society broadly and demonstrated impact or change it achieved. Through this annual award, the Canadian Association of Accounting Academics can support our institutions and membership in the evolving challenge of how to measure the impact and visibility of accounting research and its value to society, going beyond conventional measures based only on quantity and quality of publications. As demonstrable impact can take years projects conducted in the prior 25 years are open for consideration.

COMMITTEE COMPOSITION

For the inaugural year, the Award selection committee will be Chaired by Devan Mescall, who has promoted this new Award and has volunteered to get the process set up for the initial year. (In future, if the Award is to be continued as an annual CAAA Award, the Award will be added to the CAAA Policy Manual in section 8, and the CAAA Nominating Committee will identify its Chair by the same process as the other Awards.) The Chair will appoint at least two and no more than four members of the Thomas Schneider Award Committee in each year the Award is given. The makeup of the Committee should reflect the EDIIB values of the CAAA.

NOMINATING

SUBMIT A NOMINATION 

Any informed person or group, especially colleagues, departmental committees, other researchers, and provincial or national societies may nominate projects for consideration. In future, if a nominated project is not selected, nominators will be provided the option to have the project considered again in the following year.

Nominations are submitted through an online survey tool, in which nominators identify themselves and the project they are nominating, and are prompted to upload supporting information, including the following:

  1. A detailed identification of the project to be considered, and its author/creator (authors/creators).
  2. Supporting letters from people familiar with the project’s contribution.
  3. A brief statement describing how the body of work meets the criteria.
  4. Any other relevant documents.

The Chair and other members of the Committee will solicit and receive all nominations made for the Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award in the current and past year. The Chair and other members will adjudicate by reviewing the nominations and accompanying materials which have been received and will also undertake to obtain whatever additional information they may require to reach a decision.

The overall criterion for the Thomas Schneider Award is as follows:

  • A definable project within a body of work, which may include one or more articles, monographs, books or other works presented or published in English or French, which is judged to have made, or to be likely to make, a distinct and valuable contribution to the advancement of accounting thought.
  • The project will be recognized by looking at how the research has impacted our communities positively by attempting to provide new knowledge of the most pressing questions of our day.
  • Importantly, the project is acknowledged for the questions it contributes to answering and the attention it brings to important questions that may be novel but have had a demonstrable impact to improve our communities, environment or society. Examples of potential demonstrable impact include but are not limited to, impact on change in policy, impact on change of behavior or adoption of a novel approach, framework or idea.
  • As demonstrable impact takes time, any project within a body of work over the prior 25 years can be considered.
  • Through giving this annual award, the Canadian Association of Accounting Academics can support our institutions and membership in the evolving challenge of how to measure research impact, visibility and its value to society, going beyond conventional measures based only on quantity and quality of publications.

The criteria for judging works include:

  • Demonstrable impact to improve our communities, environment and society.
  • Relevance of the project to the important current challenges of environmental and social well being of our communities
  • Originality and innovative content that contributes to answering important questions that may be novel.
  • Impact that the project and body of work has had on further research or positive developments in accounting, and/or the likelihood that the project will stimulate such benefits in the future