Bob Heath Top Paper Award

In 2003, the PR Division established the Heath Top Paper Award, in honor of the scholarly achievements of Professor Robert Heath from the University of Houston, USA. Dr. Heath's 20-year record, achieving ten top paper rankings, spanned the history of the PR Division. No other scholar has achieved this level of accomplishment or recognition. Heath's sustained quality of refereed papers covered such topics as issues management, public policy, environmental health risks, constituency building, citizen risk concerns and risk communication generally, PR management of organizational crises, and an analysis of communication infrastructure. Each year, the winner of the Heath Top Paper Award is selected by division reviewers from a short list of outstanding papers.

Two past PR Division chairs, Bonita D. Neff (Valparaiso University-Indiana, USA) and Dean Kruckeberg (University of Northern Iowa, USA), coordinated the process of establishing the Heath Top Paper Award, after John Madsen (Buena Vista University-Iowa, USA) nominated Heath for the award-naming honor.

The first Heath Top Paper Award was made in 2004, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the PR Division within ICA.