Outstanding Delegate Award

The Outstanding Delegate Award is one of the standard individual recognitions given at Model United Nations conferences. In most North American award hierarchies it sits directly below Best Delegate and above Honorable Mention and Verbal Commendation (or Verbal Mention). Some conferences give one Outstanding Delegate per committee; larger committees often give two or more.

Criteria vary by conference but generally include a combination of:

• Substantive knowledge of the topic, country/character position, and relevant policy or precedent
• Diplomacy and negotiation skills, including bloc-building and compromise
• Quality of writing on working papers, draft resolutions, directives, or position papers
• Speaking during moderated and unmoderated caucus
• Adherence to rules of procedure and the assigned position

Chairs and dais staff typically score delegates throughout the conference using rubrics that weight these categories, and awards are decided in deliberation at the end of the final committee session. At many circuits, position papers must be submitted by a deadline to remain award-eligible.

The award is widely used across collegiate conferences (such as those hosted by Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Pennsylvania) and high school circuits, though naming conventions differ. Some conferences use Outstanding Delegation to refer instead to a school-level team award based on aggregate individual results; this should not be confused with the individual Outstanding Delegate Award. THIMUN-style conferences, common in Europe and Asia, traditionally do not give individual awards at all, so the term is primarily relevant in gavel-giving (North American–style) circuits.

For delegates building a competitive record, an Outstanding Delegate finish is generally counted toward season rankings published by outlets that track collegiate and high school MUN performance.