The nominee must meet the eligibility criteria to participate in the award. The Australian Surrogacy and Donor Awards aims to celebrate the contributions and impacts of people and businesses to the Australian surrogacy and donation community fairly and equitably. Each award has its eligibility criteria that must be met.

Eligibility criteria

Eligible health industry workers include doctors, embryologists, nurses, midwives, doulas, pharmacists, acupuncturists, technicians, sonographers, administrators or anyone else working in the health industry.

This award excludes fertility doctors and fertility specialists. See Fertility Specialist of the Year.

The nomination should focus on advocacy, support, education, or community engagement rather than professional skill or clinical capability.

The nominee works at a fertility clinic, hospital, medical centre, allied health centre or anywhere else a health industry worker would typically perform their regular duties.

The nominee must ordinarily be based in Australia and have contributed to or impacted significantly the Australian surrogacy or donation community.

This award does not imply clinical competence or superiority.

Nominees will be notified after nominations have closed to accept their nomination.

Judges will decide the finalists and winner of the award from nominee accepted nominations.

The public will vote for nominee accepted nominations on the Australian Surrogacy and Donor Awards website. Voting does not impact the finalists and winner selection process for this award. The nominee with the highest number of votes, wins the Amplifier Award.

What you need to know about judging…

1. Nominee accepted nominations will be judged by an independent panel of judges and shortlisted as a finalist. Not all nominees will become finalists and the number of finalists will depend on the quality and quantity of the nominations.
2. The judging of nominees, finalists and winners will be based on the information provided by the nominee in their nomination acceptance.
3. Judges will consider each nominee’s contribution and impact to the surrogacy and donation community and will focus on advocacy, support, education, or community engagement rather than professional skill or clinical capability.
4. Australian Surrogacy and Donor Awards reserves the right to transfer a nominee into another award category if it believes the nominee would be more appropriately assessed in that category.

Nominations open: Sunday 7 June 2026

Nominations close: Sunday 16 August 2026

Public votes open: Monday 6 September 2026

Public votes close: Thursday 8 October 2026

Finalist notification: Monday 12 October 2026

Awards event: Saturday 24 October 2026