Featured Articles
Jenny Baker
/ Categories: 573

It’s Down to the Final Four

Milton D. Hakel, SIOP Foundation President

At the SIOP Conference in Austin, you’re invited to attend an Ignite-style session featuring the four finalists for SIOP’s first ever $100,000 Visionary Grant. 

We started last summer with 33 entries, in the form of Letters of Intent, coming from SIOP professional and student members. Each sent superb ideas about how to shape the future of work. Content ranged from visionary takes on the traditional mainstays of our field to imaginative and creative extrapolations seeking to unite IQ, EQ and AI. 

The Letters of Intent were evaluated on these criteria:

  • Is the project visionary, i.e., it looks to the future of work, brings I-O psychology into another realm, asks new questions, and/or engages with other disciplines?
  • Does the project integrate the science and practice of I-O psychology?
  • Does the project address a problem critical to the future of work or workplaces (for example, maximize organizational effectiveness or individual productivity or well-being)?
  • Does the project have clear metrics for success, indicating how the project will change or advance praxis in I-O psychology? In other words, what metrics will be used to indicate that the project makes significant contributions? Can the project be accomplished in a year or close to a year?
  • Does the project have the potential for facilitating subsequent work and/or additional funding?
  • Is the requested funding reasonable and/or sufficient to accomplish the project?

Evaluations were averaged across criteria and raters, and a composite was calculated (r=.83) and then discussed to identify 10 semi-finalists.  Full proposals of up to 15 pages, plus budgets, timelines, and staff bios, were received by September 3.  The Visionary Grants Subcommittee of SIOP’s Awards Committee evaluated these proposals in depth, selecting four finalists. 

The finalists, listed in random order, are:

  • Robert B. Davison, with Omri Gillath, Michael S. Branicky, Shawn Keshmiri, and Ryan Spaulding, Enabling Peer-level Partnerships in Human-AI Teams
  • Muriel Clauson, The Human Skills Project: A Future-Oriented Work Ontology Toolkit
  • Jennifer M. Verive, with Jonathan Levine, Matt Reider, and Sanket Chobe, Play 2 Work: Constructing a Competency-Based Video Gaming Profile to Empower Gen Z Job Seekers
  • Susan Ashford, with Brianna Caza and Brittany Lambert, Working Off the Grid: Building Resilience in the Gig Economy

Finalists presentations at the 2020 SIOP Conference in Austin will occur on Thursday, April 23 in Lone Star Salon G at 3:30 pm. The winner of the Visionary Circle grant will be chosen by the 82 people who donated to the award. Voting by the donors will open at the end of the live session, and be available until noon CDT on Saturday, April 25.  The winner of the inaugural $100,000 Visionary Grant will be announced at the closing plenary.

The purpose of the Visionary Circle is to serve as a dependable and renewable source of grant funding for I-O research and development. It can bring a sea change for our applied organizational science, because:

  1. The demand for and receptivity to evidence-based practice has never been higher.
  2. I-O professionals are the masters of praxis – the synthesis of theory and practice without presuming the primacy of either. We all are applied scientists.
  3. SIOP is a growing and evolving node of applied science, and thereby it will attract attention and support from private and public organizations as well as corporate and private foundations.

It’s corporate and private foundations that I want to highlight here. Send or call me with your leads and ideas about how to pursue this. Attracting their attention can substantially enlarge the flow of resources invested in creating smarter workplaces. 

The SIOP Foundation Trustees welcome your comments, suggestions, and creative imaginings.  Our mission is to connect donors with I-O professionals to create smarter workplaces. 

Milt Hakel, President, mhakel@bgsu.edu, 419 819 0936

Rich Klimoski, Vice-President, rklimosk@gmu.edu

Nancy Tippins, Secretary, nancy@tippinsgroup.com

Leaetta Hough, Treasurer, leaetta@msn.com

Adrienne Colella, Communications Officer, acolella@tulane.edu

Mirian Graddick-Weir, Trustee, mgraddickweir76@gmail.com

Bill Macey, Trustee, wmacey9@gmail.com

John C. Scott, Trustee, JScott@APTMetrics.com

 

The SIOP Foundation
440 E Poe Rd Ste 101
Bowling Green, OH 43402-1355
419-353-0032   Fax: 419-352-2645
E-mail: SIOPFoundation@siop.org

 

Print
1987 Rate this article:
No rating
Comments are only visible to subscribers.

Categories

Information on this website, including articles, white papers, and other resources, is provided by SIOP staff and members. We do not include third-party content on our website or in our publications, except in rare exceptions such as paid partnerships.