NOS Literary Prize

Organisational structure

1. Trustees’ Council
The highest rule-making body of the Prize is the Trustees’ Council formed from the Founders’ Council, the Expert Council and the Executive Directorate of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.

The powers of the Trustees’ Council include the following:
- determining, supplementing and amending the Rules for the Prize, and also ensuring that they are complied with;
- choosing the President of the Prize;
- choosing and making a partial annual rotation in the members of the Prize jury;
- designing and approving a logotype and other attributes for the Prize.

2. Organising Committee
The Organising Committee is the Prize’s second highest executive body.

The Organising Committee consists of the Chairman of the organising committee and the directors of special programmes.
The duties of the organising committee Chairman are as follows:
- organising the work of the Prize over the year;
- taking care of the jury’s work (agreeing a longlist, providing materials to all members of the jury and the president of the Prize, arranging sessions of the jury, etc.);
- public relations, and promoting the Prize in the media;
- arranging the preparation of and conducting presentations, debates and other events for the Prize.

3. Jury
The Prize’s working body is the jury, which consists of five people (four members + the chairman). The jury is established by the Prize’s Trustee’s Council in conjunction with the Prize’s President from literary, cultural and social figures from any country who speak fluent Russian and are well acquainted with the Russian literary context.
The duties of the jury members are as follows:
- making a shortlist of finalists (at least six, but no more than 10) from the works submitted for the Prize;
- choosing the winner in a format of public debates with a justification of the criteria for the choice.

Choosing the finalists and the winner proceeds by consensus, and in particularly contentious case by an open vote. Decisions are taken by a simple majority.

The chairman of the jury is entitled to use a casting vote.

4. Experts
The second working body of the Prize is an expert group, which consists of three people. The composition of the expert group, by analogy with the jury, is formed by the Board of Trustees of the Prize among literary, cultural, public figures of any country who are fluent in Russian and who know the literary Russian context.

The duties of the experts include:

- acquaintance with the long list of works, formed by the Jury;

- participation in public debates at the Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair, within which a short list of books will be formed. The expert has the right to express his opinion on the selected works, to offer the jury an alternative list of finalists (in case of disagreement with their choice). But the jury has the right to choose the finalists and the final approval of the list.

- participation in the final debate on the choice of the winner of the Prize. In addition to the opportunity to express their views on the finalists, the expert group can vote one vote for its candidate. Experts take a decision collectively: the voice is counted only if all experts are ready to vote for one work. The additional voice of the expert group may affect the outcome of the vote.

4. Professional critics

The literary award "NOS" attracts professional critics (10-15 people) to determine the winner in the category "Critical Community Prize". Each critic chooses his favorites, as a result of the recruited votes an alternative short-list is formed and the winner in this nomination is selected. The announcement of the short-list and the winner in this nomination takes place within the framework of the final debate of the award.