The Provost/Netter Center Faculty-Community Partnership Award is an annual award that recognizes local, productive, and sustained faculty-community partnership projects. The amount of the award is $10,000 ($5,000 to the faculty member and $5,000 to the community partner) in order to further develop the work. Junior and senior faculty along with senior lecturers and associated faculty from any of Penn’s schools are eligible for nomination, along with their community partners. Please see below for the complete description and process of nomination. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this award, please direct them to abcscoordinator@sas.upenn.edu.

Award Nomination Process

The nomination packet deadline is Friday, October 10, 2025. The award recognizes Faculty-Community Partnership Projects. One award will be given annually for $5,000 to a faculty member and another $5,000 to the community partner to recognize, develop, and advance an existing partnership.

Criteria for Selection

The community partnership project must be affiliated with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships i.e., engaged with academically based community service (ABCS), problem solving learning (PSL) or participatory action research (PAR) style pedagogy and/or research.

The partnership project must demonstrate record of sustainable engagement.

The faculty member can be an assistant, associate, or full professor, a senior lecturer, or a member of the associated faculty.

Process of Nomination

Nominations may come from members of the University and the wider community, though the strongest nominations will be those that represent both the University and the community.  

Nominators should email a completed packet (see https://www.nettercenter.upenn.edu/about-center/advisory-boards/faculty-advisory-board/provost-netter-center-faculty-community-partnership) to abcscoordinator@sas.upenn.edu. Netter staff will submit applications to the review committee, comprised of faculty and community members.

The review committee will submit their recommendations to the Netter Center director and the provost, who will jointly make the final selection. The award decision will be announced in November.

Nomination Packet

• Cover sheet including: name, title, department, school, and email address of faculty member, and title of organization, physical address, website (if available), and email address of the community partner
• A biographical sketch/organizational description that highlights community engagement work of the nominees: faculty member and community partner
• A 500-1,000 word document detailing the following items:

1. Description of the project: Include how the project was formulated, who participated, the target audience at Penn, methods of engagement/pedagogy, and what products were created.
2. Impact of the Project: Outline the community and academic expectations, successes, failures, and impacts of the project, both for the community and for the University.

• Sustainability of the project: Describe how long the project has been in place, the adjustments that have been made to increase sustainability, and any future plans for further engagement with this project or for new related projects.

Letters of support 

In addition to the nomination packet, please submit two letters of support (at least one must be from the community). The letter of support may also be a letter co-signed by both University and community representatives.

Award Winners

For this award to remain tax-exempt, the award for the faculty member will be deposited in a University of Pennsylvania account to support teaching and research related activity. As long as the community partner is a non-profit organization, the award remains tax-exempt.