Section awards are presented during the APSA annual meeting awards ceremony. To learn more about any award listed, contact the award committee chair for the award.

All section 06. Public Administration awards to-date »

Herbert Kaufman Award

The APSA Section on Public Administration is pleased to announce that nominations are being accepted for its annual Herbert Kaufman Best Paper award. The Herbert Kaufman Committee will select the best paper presented on a panel sponsored (or co-sponsored) by the Public Administration section at the APSA Annual Meeting each year. The section will follow APSA’s guidance on what constitutes a ’presented paper’-papers that were uploaded to the APSA conference paper site, hosted by SSRN, or posted/presented in a virtual or alternative form are eligible for the Kaufman award. Deadline for nominations: March 1, 2024

Award Committee

Herbert A. Simon Book Award

The Herbert Simon Book Award is given for significant contributions to public administration scholarship. Books with publication dates of 2019, 2020, and 2021 are eligible for the 2024 award. The books orientation may be qualitative, quantitative, empirical, interpretive, ethnographic, historical, archival, normative, or theoretical. However, textbooks, revised editions of previously published books, and edited volumes are not eligible. Deadline for nominations: March 1, 2024

Award Committee

Paul Volcker Junior Scholar Research Grant

The APSA Organized Section for Public Administration invites applications and research proposals from junior scholars researching public administration issues affecting governance in the United States and abroad. Proposals will be judged on their potential to shed new light on important public administration questions, their scholarly and methodological rigor, and their promise for advancing practice and theory development. Individual grants are not renewable.
Nomination Instructions: Send electronic submissions to Volcker@apsanet.org.
Application Materials:  Proposals must address all items under the scope of the award and must be done in triplicate or sent electronically. Proposals are limited to five (5) single-spaced pages and must:

• State the purpose of the project
• State how the project contributes to scholarship within public administration and its applicability for practice and theory development
• State how the project relates to previous research and theoretical developments
• Specify research design
• Provide an itemized budget and budget justification
• Specify any additional financial support that the applicant is already receiving or anticipates receiving

In addition, each proposal also must include (in excess of the five-page written proposal):

• A cover letter summarizing project title, qualifications for successfully completing the project, and professional status (doctoral student working on dissertation or untenured assistant professor)
• An abstract of the proposal (maximum 150 words)
• A letter attesting to the quality of the research project (typically from a doctoral student's dissertation advisor or a junior faculty member's department chair
• A curriculum vitae (no more than three pages)

Eligibility: Eligibility is limited to doctoral students who have successfully defended their dissertation prospectus and tenure-track assistant professors. Applicants must be APSA members at the time of application. Membership in the Section for Public Administration is not required, but can be one of a variety of factors that the Volcker Awards Committee considers in making awards.
Funding Process and Purposes: The number, size of grants, and allocation of grants (to doctoral students and tenure-track assistant professors) awarded annually will be up to the Volcker Awards Committee. Individual grant awards are expected to average around $3,000. The number of grants and their size are determined by the Volcker Junior Scholar Research Grant Committee appointed each year. Funds may be used for such research activities as: travel to archives; travel to conduct interviews; administration and coding of survey instruments; research assistance; and purchase of datasets. This list is merely illustrative, but specifically excluded from funding are: travel to professional meetings; secretarial costs except for preparation of the final manuscripts for publication; and salary support. Deadline for nominations: April 1, 2024

Award Committee