A letter to the Member of Community of Research in Mathematics Education
from ICMI Awards Committee

Dear Colleague,

This is to urge you to consider nominating a candidate for any of the following ICMI Awards: Klein Award, to be granted for a lifetime achievement in mathematics education; Freudenthal Award for major cumulative program of research; and Castelnuovo Award to be given in recognition of outstanding achievements in the practice of mathematics education. To make it possible, we hereby declare extension of the deadline: all the nominations are to be submitted by 31 May 2019.
We now urge you to use this opportunity for honoring those of your colleagues who, in your opinion, deserve any of these Awards, which constitute the highest form of recognition this community can give to its members.
When you acknowledge in this way some central contribution to our collective attempts to understand and improve mathematics education, you do much more than rewarding those who deserve the recognition. Nominating a candidate is also, perhaps above all, an act of building our collective identity and, as such, it contributes to the professional identities of its members.
You may wonder how many deserving candidates are left unawarded after the past rounds. As chairs of the Awards Committees we may assure you: many highly deserving colleagues are still waiting to be recognized. Indeed, numerous impressive nominations were made in the past, but only a few nominees could be actually awarded. We expect past nominees to reappear among the 2019/2020 Awards candidates. In this context, let us alert you to the fact that resubmission is not automatic. No name will be considered without being accompanied by a fresh nomination, made specifically for the 2019/2020 round of awards. We hope to see many of the past candidates nominated again. True, preparing the necessary documents does require some work, but in the case of re-submission, an update of the file from a previous rounds (and mainly of the nominee’s CV) is all that needs to be done.

Hoping to be in touch with you soon again,

Anna Sfard, on behalf of Klein and Freudenthal Awards Committee
Konrad Krainer, on behalf of Castelnuovo Award Committee

Since 2003, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) awards biannually two medals to recognise outstanding accomplishments in mathematics education research:

• the Felix Klein Award, for lifelong achievement in mathematics education research,
• the Hans Freudenthal Award, for a major programme of research on mathematics education.

The Felix Klein medal is awarded for life-time achievement in mathematics education research. This award is aimed at acknowledging those excellent senior scholars who have made a field-defining contribution over their professional life. Past candidates have been influential and have had an impact both at the national level, within their own countries, and at the international level. We have valued in the past those candidates who not only have made substantial research contributions, but also have introduced new issues, ideas, perspectives, and critical reflections. Additional considerations have included leadership roles, mentoring, and peer recognition, as well as the actual or potential relationship between the research done and improvement of mathematics education at large, through connections between research and practice. 

The Hans Freudenthal medal is aimed at acknowledging the outstanding contributions of an individual's theoretically robust and highly coherent research programme. It honours a scholar who has initiated a new research programme and has brought it to maturation over the past 10 years. The research programme is one that has had an impact on our community. Freudenthal awardees should also be researchers whose work is ongoing and who can be expected to continue contributing to the field. In brief, the criteria for this award are depth, novelty, sustainability, and impact of the research program. 

See the ICMI webpage for further information about the awards and for the names of past awardees (eight Freudenthal Medals and eight Klein Medals, to date).

The ICMI Klein and Freudenthal Awards Committee consists of a chair (Professor Anna Sfard) nominated by the President of ICMI, and five other members who remain anonymous until their terms have come to an end. The ICMI Klein and Freudenthal Awards Committee is at this time entering the 2019 cycle of selecting awardees and welcomes nominations for the two awards from individuals or groups of individuals in the mathematics education community.

 Nominations for the Felix Klein Award should include the following:

1. a document (max. 8 pages) describing the achievements of the nominee (e.g., his or her theoretical contribution and/or empirical research, leadership roles, graduate supervision and mentoring, and peer recognition) and reasons for the nomination (including a description of the nominee's impact on the field); 
2. a one-page summarizing statement;
3. a curriculum vitae of the nominee (max. 20 pages);
4. electronic copies of three of the nominee's key publications;
5. three letters of support (preferably from different countries); and
6. the names and e-mail addresses of two persons other than the nominee herself or himself who could provide further information, if needed. 

Nominations for the Hans Freudenthal Award should include the following: 

1. a document (max. 5 pages) describing the nominee's research program and reasons for the nomination (including a description of the nominee's impact on the field); 
2. a one-page summarizing statement;
3. a curriculum vitae of the nominee (max. 10 pages);
4. electronic copies of three of the nominee's key publications;
5. three letters of support (from different countries, if possible); and
6. the names and e-mail addresses of two persons other than the nominee herself or himself who could provide further information, if needed.

All nominations must be sent by e-mail to the Chair of the Committee (annasd@edu.haifa.ac.il, sfard@netvision.net.il) no later than 31 May 2019. 

Prof. Anna Sfard
Department of Mathematics Education, The University of Haifa
Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel

The Call for Nominations for the 2020 Castelnuovo Award can be found here.