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Scientific and Technological Achievement Award (STAA) Overview
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The 2013 STAA Award Competition is Now Open
Nominations will be accepted until midnight ET on Thursday February 28, 2013. Contact Benjamin Packard with any questions at (703) 347- 8087 or packard.benjamin@epa.gov. See Forms and guidelines.
The STAA review program is a long-standing partnership between the Agency and the EPA Science Advisory Board. Each year since 1980, Agency scientists and engineers have submitted nominated scientific and technological papers through an internal Agency review process managed by the Office of Research and Development (ORD).
The SAB convenes an experienced interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers to evaluate the nominations. The SAB review panel produces a set of award recommendations which ORD uses to prepare the actual awards.
Recognition of the authors of the award-winning papers helps establish publication in peer reviewed journals as normative. Beginning in 2003, the Agency has honored those EPA authors receiving the highest level of awards at the annual Science Forum. In response to an SAB review panel recommendation in 2005, the Agency now lists the non-EPA co-authors of the STAA winning papers beside their EPA counterparts. This is one way the Agency can acknowledge these scientists and engineers whose scientific and technological contribution resulted in peer reviewed publications that received an award for its quality.
Publicity about the STAA program encourages employees to participate, adds luster to the awards, and makes the general public more aware of the quality and depth of EPA science. Making the public aware of the quality of EPA science and its publication in the peer reviewed literature improves the credibility of the science underpinning Agency decisions on important scientific issues of specific importance to EPA.