Regulations for the “Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis on Jerusalem”
Issued by the Council of Deans in its session no. 344/2015 on 27/4/2015
1. Eligible Applicants: Doctoral students
2. Scope: All universities recognized by the University of Jordan
3. Language: Arabic, English, or any other language accepted by the Committee
4. Maximum of word length: 1.5 million words inclusive of footnotes, endnotes, and appendices
5. Prize Committee:
a. Membership
· Dean of postgraduate research (member)
· Dean of scientific research (member)
· Head of the department of specialization (member)
· Two faculty members in the same specialization, appointed by the university chancellor
· Committee convener is the most senior committee member
b. Committee’s Term: Four years, non-renewable
6. The prize shall be awarded biennially if conditions are met.
7. The prize committee shall announce the deadlines for nominations and the prize theme two semesters prior to the prize-winning announcement.
8. Applications shall be submitted either by individual researchers or by their degree-awarding universities, and in either case, all necessary official documents shall be included.
9. Prize Value: 10,000 Jordanian dinars and a certificate to document that the winner has earned the prize.
10. Prize Refereeing Honorarium: 100 Jordanian dinars for each assessed thesis to a maximum of 500 dinars per referee.
11. Responsibilities of the Prize Committee:
a. The Committee shall preview each candidate thesis for the purpose of assessing whether it meets the prize criteria in form and substance prior to sending it to a refereeing committee.
b. The refereeing committee shall consist of three members who specialize in the topic of the thesis, and the refereeing process shall be confidential, and the referee’s report shall be on a form prepared by the prize committee.
c. The referees shall send their reports to the prize committee at its stated address within one month of receipt of the thesis.
d. The prize committee shall study and deliberate on all referees’ reports and make the appropriate recommendation to award the prize to one or more candidates or to withhold it if none of the theses was of high quality.
12. Award Criteria
a. The winning thesis shall adopt standard scientific research methodology.
b. It shall use standard documentation procedures.
c. It shall exhibit originality and shall use current references.
d. The language used in the winning thesis shall be grammatically and stylistically sound.
e. The winning candidate shall exhibit competence in their analysis and must hold an excellent academic record.
f. The candidate shall approach the topic with objectivity.
g. The contribution of the thesis to its field of study and to knowledge at large shall be significant.
h. All diagrams, tables, maps, drawings, and graphs shall serve well the argumentation in the thesis.
i. The thesis must have been defended no longer than two years prior to the opening date of prize applications.
13. In case the University of Jordan gets the thesis published, it shall hold its copyrights.