Awards

ESPID offers the Bill Marshall Award, its most prestigious award, every year to a senior member of the society.

The award is named after Dr William Courtney Marshall (1929-1983), a founder member of ESPID who tragically died in his prime and not long after the society was founded. Dr Marshall trained at Sydney University, Australia and held junior appointments in Sydney hospitals before moving to London in 1958. He was briefly attached to Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital before his appointment to Great Ormond St. Hospital for Children, where he worked for the rest of his life.

As a consultant and senior lecturer, he built up an international reputation as a unique clinician and teacher, especially in south east Asia. His special interest was infectious diseases in children, including the causes of infection and prevention by immunisation.

The criteria for nomination and selection of candidates combine a track record of high level achievement in clinical practice, teaching or research in paediatric infectious diseases and any combination thereof with personal contribution to the activities of ESPID, often in the form of work as one of the officers of the Society or in one or more of its committees although members who have contributed through their regular attendance and contributions to annual meetings or who have undertaken other kinds of organisational, teaching, training, editorial or research work for or on behalf of the Society are also recognised. The balance between the two broad criteria of merit (PID track record and contributions to ESPID) can vary from one awardee to another.

Members do not apply for the award but are instead nominated by other members. No cv is solicited from nominees. The only specific criterion for eligibility is to be a paid up member of ESPID. Any one member can only receive the award once. In any one year there is only one awardee. Any member nominated by at least one other member in any year is considered equally alongside other nominees on their merits. Selection is not based on the number of nominations made although clearly a nomination reflects the opinion of the member making it and those advising and deciding on the award are made aware of the numbers of nominations made and who made them. All paid-up ordinary members and all honorary members are eligible.

The Bill Marshall Award winner will give a presentation on a topic of her/his choice at the upcoming Annual Meeting. The overall time slot is normally 45-60 minutes. There is not normally time allocated for questions. 

The winner will receive:

• Free registration, travel (per ESPID rules) and accommodation for the upcoming ESPID annual meeting
• The ESPID Bill Marshall Award medal
• A citation in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal.

• All members are emailed in September or October asking them to make a nomination for the Bill Marshall Award.
• A deadline for nominations will be specified and, if possible, members should be allowed 3-4 weeks to respond.

Nominations should be made online by at least one ESPID member "in good standing" (download the ESPID "good standing" member criteria here).

• ESPID members nominating a candidate for the Bill Marshall Award should provide a brief statement explaining the reasons for their nomination
• Members are advised to first check that their nominee is an ESPID member
• Nominations will be considered by the ESPID Board who will make the final decision. When the Board has decided to whom to offer the Bill Marshall award, this person is informed by the ESPID Secretary by email.

List of Bill Marshall Award winners