Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award

Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award

Please note that inaugural offering for this award will take place at Canadian Academic Accounting Association 2025 Annual Conference. A decision will be made following the conference related to establishing it as an annual Award.

General Description

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 focussed on how accounting can positively impact our world.

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 CAAA 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 many years to emerge, projects from any time 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 and geographic diversity of the CAAA to the extent possible.

Submission of nominations

Any informed person or group, including colleagues, departmental committees, other researchers, and provincial or national societies, may nominate projects for consideration. While the decision of the committee is final, if a nominated project is not selected its 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.

Evaluation of nominations

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 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 has had on further research or positive developments in accounting, and/or the likelihood that the project will stimulate such benefits in the future

  Submit a Nomination

Tom Schneider Award Committee for 2025

Devan Mescall, Chair, University of Saskatchewan