Guide to e-lect

E-lect is the online system that supports the Academy’s Fellowship election process. This system includes the provision for proposing new candidates and for viewing and updating the material of existing candidates.  

This guide will support you to navigate the process of nominations through the system. If further support is needed, or you would benefit from this guide in a different format please contact Russell Crandon, Fellowship Manager at [email protected].

Nominations from Fellows will help to ensure our Fellowship reflects the full breadth of talent, disciplines and experiences across the biomedical and health research community. This will culminate in a diverse and dynamic Fellowship, whilst maintaining the excellence needed for today and the future.  

Logging in

E-lect can be found by visiting the Academy website, logging in as a Fellow and clicking on the Fellows Hub at the top of the screen.  If you have forgotton your password, then please click on the "Forgot your Password" button and follow the onscreen instructions to create your new password. 

Your username is your email address. 

Nominating a candidate*

Once on the Fellows portal page you will see the e-lect tile. Click on that tile to access the system. To make a new nomination follow the below steps:

• Go to the ‘Candidates’ tile and then click on ‘Nominations’. You will be presented with all your current and previous candidates. 
• Click on ‘Create new nomination’ (or) 
• To re-nominate a candidate you have nominated before, click on ‘Renominate a previous candidate’ and this will show the previous candidates you have nominated and if they are now eligible for renomination. 

There are four steps to complete in the first part of the nomination process:

1. Enter the personal details of your candidate. You will see some of the fields are marked with a red dot. These fields are mandatory and must be filled in. Click ‘save and next’ when done. 
2. Enter the nomination details for your candidate. Your name will already appear as the Principal Nominator so please select the support nominators from the drop-down list in each field. Support nominators are invited to comment further on two of the citation questions found on the following page. Please invite your support nominators to log in and add their additional comments. 
3. Enter the Committee you wish the candidate to be considered by and whether they are Clinical or Non-Clinical. Principal nominators are now able to select an optional second Sectional Committee (by exception). If there is a strong case that your candidate can be considered for a different Committee select ‘Second Sectional Committee consideration’, choose the Committee and outline the reasons for your selection in the box provided. If you are nominating an overseas candidate then please check the box (all nominations of overseas candidates should be discussed with the Registrar in advance of nomination).  Then click ‘save and next’. 
4. Answer the four citation questions. Answer these as comprehensively as you can in the boxes provided keeping to the 300-word limit (or less) in each, then click ‘save’. The citation questions are a great opportunity for you to present your nominee in a way that tangibly shares how they can contribute to the future of medical sciences as a Fellow. It will also enable the sectional committees to review and consider candidates for future Fellowship in a fair and inclusive way. Please keep the answers succinct and within the word count, there is guidance next to each question to support completion. Please see the citation questions and guidance at the end of this page.

TIP: If you are not ready to answer fully the citation questions yet then just enter a few random characters in the box and click ‘finish’. You can return at any time before the deadline to edit these. 

Your nomination has now been created!

The details you have just entered have been saved and you can return at any time to edit or change these. You will now be asked whether you wish to add the candidate’s required documents. Click ‘yes’ to be taken to the document upload page, or if you wish to add these later, then click ‘no’ to be taken back to your nominations list. 

When viewing your candidate’s details page, you will see the information you have entered for your candidate given as a summary.  You can edit and change this information at any time by clicking ‘edit candidature’. Support nominators will also be able to edit their answers to questions three and four respectively. . 

Upload candidate support documents

The next steps in completing your nomination are to upload the candidate’s support documents – CV, summary of achievements, top 10 contributions list and full publication list. These are entered by clicking the ‘upload documents’ button next to the candidate in the list of your nominations, or the ‘edit candidature documents’ button when viewing the candidate’s details.

Please read the guidelines at the end of this page about how these documents should be presented, paying particular attention to word and page limits.

• Click on the upload files button to upload a document into that field or drag a document into it. 

• All documents are to be uploaded as PDF only. Word documents are not accepted in these fields. 

• If your candidate is an overseas candidate, you will need to upload an additional document entitled ‘Letter of contribution’.
• When you have uploaded the required documents click ‘submit’. 

Upload candidate publications

The final documents to upload are copies of the candidate’s top ten publications or outputs. 

• To upload publications/outputs go to the ‘Upload Publications’ button. 

• Please read the guidelines given for the publications especially document size. 

• Click on the upload files button to upload a document into that field or drag a document into it. 
• All documents are to be uploaded as PDF only. 
• Repeat the above steps until all 10 publications’ outputs are uploaded. 

When you have finished entering all the data for your candidate and have uploaded all their support documents and publications, you will see the candidate’s status has changed to ‘pending for approval’.  Your candidate will then be sent a candidate acknowledgment form electronically which they must complete and sign.  

Once this has been done the Fellowship Manager will review the nomination and, if all components are complete, then the nomination will be accepted and the status will change to ‘Active’.

NOTE: Even when the nomination is marked as Active, you can still change or edit the details of the nomination right up until the deadline. 

*Please note the regulations around nominating candidates which are: 

• No Ordinary Fellow may nominate more than four new candidates in any one year as Principal Nominator. Of these four, no more than two shall be from the nominating Fellows’ own institution. An exception will be made to allow further candidates to be nominated from a Fellows’ own institution if they are from an under-represented area of the Fellowship. The nominating Fellow must converse with the Office and Registrar in advance of nominating to demonstrate that these candidates fit the criteria.      
• No Ordinary Fellow shall have more than five Candidates in the overall candidate pool at any one time. 

Thank you for your continued support in nominations, if you have any suggestions that will improve or support the process to continue to reflect the full breadth of talent, disciplines, and experiences across the biomedical and health research community, please get in touch with Russell Crandon, Fellowship Manager at [email protected]. Please also contact Russell for any queries about e-lect or if any problems are encountered when using it.

Candidate document guidelines

As mentioned above, each candidate will need four support documents added to their application. The guidelines for these are:

• Summary of achievements (to reference the top ten principal contributions; no longer than 500 words). 

• 10 principal contributions (as referenced in the summary of achievements). 

• Curriculum vitae (to be no more than four sides of A4). 

• Full list of publications/outputs. 
• Overseas candidates are required to have a Letter of Contribution outlining their unique contribution to supporting and advising UK biomedical science. 

Citation Questions and guidelines 

Question 1: Current or future potential impact to advance medical sciences. 

What is the potential for this candidate, use your own assessment of the candidates past, current or future work to share how they make an outstanding contribution to the advancement of medical sciences?  

Guidance - This answer could give examples of clinical/non-clinical and/or emergent disciplines that the candidate has been involved in.

Question 2: Contribution to collaboration and partnerships.  

How has the candidate used collaborations, partnerships and team science to support the advancement of medical science?  

Guidance - Give examples of how the candidate has supported the advancement of medical science. This could be within their own discipline and/or across the medical sciences community, through collaborations, partnerships and team science to shape or influence the future.

Question 3: Contribution to the Academy. 

Thinking about the nominated candidate and their experience, what will they add to the Academy now and in the future.  

Guidance - Give examples of non-traditional routes to study, specific academia, international experience or a lens or insight that is underrepresented in the current Fellowship.

Question 4: Impact on wider society.  

How has the candidates work contributed to wider society?

Guidance - Give examples of the candidates work with, or impact on, patients, media, communities, public and/or ethical or legal expertise.