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Council on Research Awards

The Council on Research (COR) administers two award programs: the APLU Public Impact Research Award and a council-level award specific to COR. .

2026 COR Exemplary Service Award

Photo by Patrick Campbell/University of Colorado Boulder

At the 2026 COR Summer Meeting this week, we presented Howard Gobstein with the APLU COR Exemplary Service Award, recognizing his more than 20 years of service to APLU and to COR in particular. Many of you have worked with Howard and know how much of what COR is today is owed to him. He led the transition from the former Council on Research Policy and Graduate Education (CRPGE) into COR, built out the Public Impact Research report and awards, and was instrumental in launching the Research Leader Fellows program to help develop the next generation of research leaders at our institutions. He did this while serving as a PI on multiple NSF awards that advanced STEM education at public research universities. Before APLU, Howard’s career included roles with the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, along with leadership positions at the University of Michigan, the Association of American Universities, and Michigan State University. He then joined APLU, where he went on to serve as Vice President for Research and Science Policy, Executive Vice President, and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

As Howard retires from APLU, we extend our deepest gratitude for his leadership, analytical rigor, and collaborative spirit, all of which have shaped COR’s culture and strengthened our community. Please join us in congratulating Howard on this well-earned recognition and in thanking him for his lasting contributions to APLU and the public and land-grant university research community.

2026 APLU Public Impact Research (PIR) Award

The APLU Public Impact Research Award recognizes an APLU member who has implemented one or more impactful Public Impact Research (PIR) efforts that have produced exceptional outcomes. PIR is a broad term used to describe how university research improves lives and serves society at the local, regional, national, and global levels. Applications were due Friday, June 26, 2026.

PIR is a broad and inclusive term encompassing multi-disciplinary research, community-engaged research, research grand challenges, research-practice partnerships, participatory research, translational and use-inspired research, co-production, and other approaches.

Criteria for the Award include: connection to public need, leveraged resources, evidence of impact, and sustainability. Use the menus below to learn the submission criteria.

This award is intended to recognize a university that has implemented one or more impactful Public Impact Research (PIR) efforts that have produced exceptional outcomes. The program must have been active within the last five years to be considered.

Eligible PIR initiatives may be coordinated, multi-year, multi-project efforts or they may be individual projects, so long as they are focused on community/public impact. (Note: If an individual project is nominated, it will be important to communicate the potential replicability and scalability of the project in other contexts.)

If a program is a multi-institutional effort, the submission should describe the responsibilities of each party and identify a ‘prime’ representative organization to work directly with APLU and physically accept the award at the 2026 Annual Meeting.

As APLU defined it in 2019, PIR is any research that benefits the public. For example, this may include developing new medications, addressing environmental challenges impacting a local community, or examining disparities in education access and economic development to inform policy. PIR is a broad and inclusive term that encompasses multi-disciplinary research, community-engaged research, research grand challenges, research-practice partnerships, participatory research, translational and use-inspired research, coproduction, and other approaches.

Nominations of PIR initiatives across all APLU members are welcome.

Criteria weighed in the selection process include the following:

  • Connection to Public Need: Nominated research initiatives should be intentionally tuned to specific public needs via direct and ongoing engagement.
  • Leveraged Resources: Programs that judiciously use available resources to develop and implement their programs, which have the potential to be scaled by others, will be valued.
  • Evidence of Impact: The demonstrated and measured impact of a nominated initiative, as well as the number of persons/groups benefiting from it, will carry weight in the selection. For those projects that work directly with a specific community, attestation of impact by community leaders is particularly valued.
  • Sustainability: Public impact research benefits, and benefits from, a strong and sustainable two-way relationship between the university and the public.  Programs that show either sustainable past or planned future actions will be valued.

Criteria will be judged by a committee consisting of volunteer members of the APLU Council on Research Executive and Awards Committees and may include external public impact research experts.

Self-nominations are welcome (i.e., the senior research officer may nominate her/his own university). In fact, self-nominations are expected to be the norm, given the types of information required to substantiate the nomination (see below). The nomination must be submitted by the institution’s senior research officer, and only one nomination per institution or multi-institution consortium is accepted.

Nomination cover page, which must include:

  • The institution being nominated
  • Name of the program being nominated
  • Name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the nominator (senior research officer)
  • A statement to the following effect: “If selected, the SRO of the nominated (or for multi-institution submissions, ‘prime’) institution agrees to be available to accept the award and present the initiative at the subsequent APLU annual meeting (or agrees to arrange for a suitable institutional substitute).” For this award cycle, the APLU PIR award will be bestowed during the association-wide Awards session at the 2026 APLU Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, between November 15-17.

Program description section (7 pages total), which must include:

  • Overview of the initiative (not to exceed 1 page)
    • Brief abstract of initiative suitable for public audiences
    • Identify the initiative leader(s) and their roles (Director, PI, etc.)
  • Narrative (not to exceed 6 pages): A description of the program objectives, the coalition of stakeholders involved, methodology, and impact of the initiative with sufficient information to assess the award criteria:
    • Connection to Public Need
    • Leveraged Resources
    • Evidence of Impact
    • Sustainability
  • Testimonials/Endorsements (does not count against page limits):
    • One (1) letter of endorsement from the president/chancellor/rector of the participating institution, or the prime institution of a multi-institution collaboration
    • If a cross-institutional effort, one (1) letter of endorsement from each non-prime participating organization’s leadership at the Senior Research Officer level or higher.
    • No more than two (2) additional letters of support may be included from persons impacted by the initiative or from other public/community leaders who can substantiate the initiative’s impact
APLU PIR GivePulse Application Portal

APLU PIR Application GivePulse Tutorial