Who can make a nomination?

Any individual or group can make a nomination for an award. Nominators should not be relatives of the person/people being nominated. You cannot nominate yourself for an award.

Who is eligible for nomination?

Any individual or group can be nominated, including members and those outside the profession. All nominees must have given particular service to the podiatry profession.

What are the categories of award available?

The award categories are shown below. A list is also available in the nominations pack, together with guidance notes applicable to each category.

Academic Award

The Academic Award is bestowed upon individuals in recognition of an outstanding contribution to academic knowledge or practice. Podiatrists nominated for this award may be employed within the academic community as academics, clinical academics or clinical educators.

The award may be conferred upon early-career academics and researchers as well as mid-career academics and established academic leaders and will be granted in recognition of a member’s outstanding contribution to academic knowledge, education and/or research excellence.

Gold Medal Award

This award is conferred upon an individual podiatrist who has demonstrated excellence throughout his or her professional career. The award will be conferred upon an individual who has made a significant and sustained impact in improving the quality of life of service users or who has excelled at and surpassed the responsibilities and requirements of his or her professional/clinical role. In each case, the awardee should have demonstrated outstanding service over a sustained period of time. The award may also be conferred upon an individual who has provided consistent, sustained and effective leadership at branch or regional level throughout the United Kingdom.

Diamond Award

The Diamond Award is the highest award within the Royal College of Podiatry. It is awarded to individuals who can demonstrate substantial, outstanding and exemplary contribution to the profession of podiatry over a sustained period of time. It is conferred upon individuals, who have given outstanding and exemplary service to the advancement of podiatry and are recognised as eminent or pre-eminent in a given field of professional practice or public service at national or international level. At any one time, there must not be more than 25 living recipients of the Diamond Award.

Innovation Award

The Royal College of Podiatry Innovation Award may be conferred upon an individual, a company or an organisation. The recipient of the award must be able to evidence innovation in the design of a product or service which demonstrably constitutes an advance in professional practice. The award may be made in recognition of a pioneering IT or digital project, an innovative clinical intervention or service design, an original teaching methodology or a pioneering research project which demonstrates innovation at its core.

Royal College of Podiatry Award

This award may be conferred upon any individual member or fellow of the Royal College of Podiatry, of any age or duration of membership, who has undertaken significant voluntary work in the provision of podiatric services at local, national or international level. Recipients must have demonstrated extraordinary and exceptional commitment to the provision of voluntary service in podiatry.

The Alf Morris Award

This award has been established in honour of the late President of the College of Podiatry, The Rt Hon Lord Morris of Manchester AO QSO, who died in 2012. The award reflects Lord Morris’s strong social conscience and the difference he made to the lives of ordinary, disadvantaged people and in particular, the disabled.

The award is conferred upon members, fellows, or podiatry service teams who have made an exceptional, altruistic, personal or team contribution to the podiatric care of disadvantaged individuals or communities in the United Kingdom or abroad. This may include service to those with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, or in support of military veterans, reflecting the legislative and policy achievements in these areas made by Lord Morris.

Honorary Fellowship

The Royal College of Podiatry recognises a small group of individuals as honorary fellows. This category of fellowship is conferred by the Royal College upon individuals who would not normally qualify for fellowship of the organisation. Honorary fellowship is bestowed upon individuals who have made a substantive and significant contribution to the advancement of the podiatric profession in any of the fields of clinical practice, education, service management or research.