How does it work?
At the beginning of your nomination, you have to choose one of the six categories for which you want to compete:
- Public Health
Preventing and controlling dental disease while promoting dental health through organized community program.
- Full Time Clinician
Providing direct patient care 32+ hours per week. Full time position providing care in general practice, periodontal practice, geriatric patients, intellectual disabilities, specialty needs and mobile dentistry
- Academia
Full time position with dental hygiene program educating and mentoring the dental hygienist of the future.
- Entrepreneur
Organizing and promoting a personal business to benefit the dental professional or dental patients.
- New RDH
Graduated 5 years ago or less) (Recognizing those RDH who graduated in 2019, or after, focusing on making a difference in their community, with their patients, or in an entrepreneurial program.
- Research
Authored a peer-reviewed research paper within the past 3 years. Content cannot be focused on a sponsored product. (Award in this category will be limited to only the lead author if multiple research authors. Only one author will be covered for hotel and travel expenses.)
Please note: you can only apply for one category; your first nomination counts, those submitted after will be removed. Nominations have to be written in English.
You can either nominate yourself OR a colleague, as long as you (or the person you’re nominating) are an officially registered dental hygienist. All eligible entries that meet the criteria and are submitted by the due date will be blinded before going to the selection committee for review and judging.
An independent selection committee of internationally known dental hygienists, carefully assembled by the EDHF, will judge your written nomination by using a standard scoring system. The Sunstar Foundation is the award sponsor but does not participate in award screening or selection. This is the sole responsibility of the independent selection committee. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, members of the selection committee must disclose any personal or professional ties with entrants (e.g., as instructor, supervisor, dissertation committee member, or editor) to the other members of the committee. If a committee member does have such ties, she or he should not participate in judging. Selection committee members are not eligible for the awards.
The Awards
Each category will produce one winner, which means six in total. The recipients will receive prize money of 1,000 EUR each. Besides that, as mentioned, the recipients are automatically nominated for the WDHA, giving them the chance to win that competition as well and travel to the bi-annual International Symposium of Dental Hygiene where they will be celebrated.