The Teaching Excellence Award is a way to celebrate and reward exceptional educational scholarship across the U21 HSG network. Each year, two individuals will be announced as the awardees. The Teaching Excellence Award aims to nurture international cooperation — one of U21 HSG’s key objectives — by offering the two faculty from different universities, and ideally different disciplines, an opportunity to work together to jointly deliver a workshop.

APPLY OR NOMINATE SOMEONE!

The U21 HSG 2025 Teaching Excellence Awards (“TEA”) is open for nominations. All nominations should be sent by the university representative to the U21 HSG Secretariat Office (alicia22@hku.hk) before 18 June 2025.

What does the Award offer?

Aside from the recognition and the prestige of winning the award, the TEA offers the two awardees travel funding (flight + accommodation) to attend the U21 HSG 2026 Annual Meeting, where they will be required to work together to facilitate an educational workshop. The location and time of the 2026 Annual Meeting will be announced later in 2025.

Who is it aimed at?

To be considered for the award, the individual must hold a current academic appointment in one of the U21 HSG member universities with a significant component of teaching. 2025 TEA nominees / applicants must indicate if they are:

Either an emerging academic (3 to 6 years of relevant teaching experience)
Or an experienced academic (Over 6 years of relevant teaching experience)

How to apply?

Those interested will need to contact the 2025 Teaching Excellence Award representative from their university to understand the process. Each U21 HSG member institution can nominate up to two applicants for the Teaching Excellence Award:

Maximum of 1 emerging academic
Maximum of 1 experienced academic

All final applications should be sent on or before 18 June 2025 to Alicia Lui, U21 HSG Operations Manager, via email at alicia22@hku.hk.

Nomination process

Universities can have their own internal nomination, review process and timelines. If you’re an applicant, it’s best to check with your university representative to find out what the process is.

Selection committee

Final applications (one per university) will be reviewed by a panel of reviewers. They will be looking for evidence of impact of the teaching activities developed by applicants / nominees in the areas of:

International collaboration in teaching and learning or internationalisation of curricula
Contributions to advancing teaching and learning with a particular focus on interdisciplinary teaching and on students’ interdisciplinary learning
Outstanding and sustained record of teaching excellence

Timeline

2025

end Feb: Award is open for applications
18 June: Deadline for universities to submit their nominee / applicant to Alicia Lui via email.
August: Winners designated by selection committee
August: Winners announced