Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award

Sponsored jointly by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, these dissertation awards are made annually to individuals who, in the opinion of the Award Committee, have completed dissertations representing original work that make an unusually significant contribution to their disciplines.

Award Information

UB has been invited to submit one nomination in the field of Biological Sciences/Life Sciences and one nomination in the field of Humanities and Fine Arts. A selection committee will decide on the nomination to be put forward from UB for each category.

Two CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, each consisting of an award of $2,000 and a certificate of recognition, will be presented at the CGS Annual Meeting Awards Luncheon in December 2025, in Washington, DC. Reasonable travel expenses of award recipients will be covered.

Nominations are now open.

Nominations for the 2025 award will be accepted through Thursday, June 5.

Fields of Competition

There are two broad fields of competition for the 2025 dissertation awards. Under each broad field, we provide a non-inclusive list of fine fields that are considered to belong to the broader fields under consideration.

  • Biological Sciences/Life Sciences: biology; botany; zoology; ecology; embryology; entomology; genetics; nutrition; plant pathology; plant physiology; anatomy; biochemistry; biophysics; microbiology; pathology; pharmacology; physiology; and related fields (health sciences). Also included are agriculture, forestry, zoology; and related fields.
  • Humanities and Fine Arts: history; philosophy; language; linguistics; literature; archaeology; jurisprudence; the history, theory and criticism of the arts; ethics; comparative religion; and those aspects of the social sciences that employ historical or philosophical approaches.

If a dissertation is multi- or interdisciplinary in nature, a significant portion of the work must be comprised by at least one of the 2025 fields of competition.

Eligibility Criteria

The effective date of the degree awarded, or the completion of doctoral degree requirements and dissertation, must lie in the period of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2025.

This year, the Graduate School is accepting nominations from the following fields of competition:

  • Biological Sciences/Life Sciences
  • Humanities and Fine Arts

Nomination Package Requirements

A complete nomination package includes the following four components in the order of:

  1. A completed nomination form.
  2. An abstract of the nominee's dissertation (not to exceed five double-spaced pages). Appendices containing nontextual material, such as charts or tables, and/or references may be included in additional pages (not to exceed five pages). All pages should be numbered, and each should bear the name of the nominee.
  3. Three letters of recommendation evaluating the significance and quality of the nominee's dissertation work. One of these letters is to be from the nominee's dissertation supervisor, another from a member of the nominee's dissertation committee, and the third from a person of the nominee's choice.
  4. The nominee's curriculum vitae (not to exceed five pages).