Prize Specifications

Principal Guideline

The Nicholas J. Higham Prize for Research Impacting Scientific Software, established in 2025, is awarded every two years to an individual or team whose fundamental and novel research contributions in applied and computational mathematics have combined world-leading creativity and rigor in a manner that has substantially impacted widely used scientific computing software. The prize recognizes primarily the excellence of the mathematical research and secondarily the extent to which that research has become embedded in state-of-the-art software packages.

The prize should be given for a single piece of work or a single body of work. The prize may be awarded to multiple individuals but only for contributions to a single piece of their collaborative work.

Prize Committee

Formation

The prize committee will consist of five SIAM members appointed by the SIAM President. One of the members will be designated by the President as chair. Members of the prize committee must be appointed at least eighteen months before the prize award date.

Tenure of the Prize Committee

The committee for each prize award serves from the date of appointment until the prize is awarded. If the committee reports that no prize winner has been chosen, and if this report is accepted by the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council, the committee’s duties will be completed.

Rules of Operation

The prize committee will follow the ‘best practices’ set out in the SIAM document for Selection Committees. The prize committee will follow the SIAM rules for conflicts of interest as posted on the SIAM website.

Selection Procedures

Eligibility

The prize may be awarded to any member or members of the scientific community meeting the general guidelines of the award. The prize should be given for a single piece of work or a single body of work. The prize may be awarded to multiple individuals but only for contributions to a single piece of their collaborative work.

Nominations

Nominations will be solicited in the publications and various relevant electronic newsletters and communications of SIAM and other major scientific and engineering societies at least twelve months before the awarding of the prize. Nominators should consult the Selection Guidelines page for information on how to present achievements and successes outside the academic setting.

Selection Criteria

In terms of assessment, the prize committee will judge candidates according to:

• Creativity and originality in the design and analysis of one or more numerical algorithms.
• Rigor and thoroughness of the mathematical analysis of the performance and reliability of the algorithm(s).
• Importance, prevalence, and breadth of the algorithms, as evidenced by extent of use in scientific software, resulting from the research.
• Whether or not the candidate(s) contributed directly to the implementation of the software itself is not part of the selection criteria.

Recommendation by Prize Committee

The prize committee will notify the SIAM President of its recommendation at least six months before the prize award date. The committee’s report must include a written justification (a short report on the committee’s deliberations that justifies the recommendation) and a citation of about 100 words that may be read at the time of the award.

The Prize Committee has the authority to choose to abstain from giving the award if there is no acceptable individual. If the award is not given for this reason, a new selection committee will be selected for the next award cycle.

An award decision will be postponed to the next cycle if the number of nominations does not meet the required number to forward to the selection committee. See SIAM Prize Policy for more information.

Approval by the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council

The President will report the committee’s recommendation to the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council, which will accept or reject the committee’s choice within one week of notification.

If the prize committee’s nomination is accepted by the Executive Committee of the SIAM Council, the award presentation will be made as described below. If the initial nomination is not accepted, the selection committee can provide a second recommendation within two weeks of receiving notification of rejection.

Notification of the Prize Winner

The President will notify the recipient at least five months prior to the award date.

Description of the Award

Nature of the Award

The recipient of the Nicholas J. Higham Prize for Research Impacting Scientific Software shall receive a customized fountain pen, a cash award, and reasonable expenses for travel to the award ceremony from the prize fund. The amount of the award is $2,000.

If more than one person receives the prize, the cash award is to be divided equally among the recipients and reasonable travel expenses for one recipient to attend the award ceremony will be provided.

Award Date

The prize is given every two years.

Award Presentation

The prize will be awarded by the SIAM President at the SIAM Annual Meeting or at another major SIAM conference.

Prize History

The Nicholas J. Higham Prize for Research Impacting Scientific Software was established in 2025. The award recognizes Nicholas J. Higham’s legacy in providing world-leading creativity, scholarship, and leadership in numerical analysis and scientific computing. In particular, he made numerous substantial contributions to the design and analysis of algorithms throughout his career, which have subsequently been incorporated into core scientific software packages used around the world every day. He was also a fervent proponent of creativity as a skill, to be developed and harnessed for mathematical research and beyond. The initial funds to support this prize were generously donated by Mathworks (creators of MATLAB and Simulink) and NAG (creators of the NAG library of numerical software). The award of a fountain pen is meant to commemorate Higham’s prolific career as a writer.