Proposal and selection of candidates
Union and division awards and medals
Nomination guidelines
A person is eligible to receive one EGU/EUG/EGS medal only once in their lifetime except for the Union medals, which can be assigned only once to any person including previous division medal awardees. With regards to early career scientists, any person is eligible to receive one outstanding early career scientists award in their lifetime. This can be either the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists or a Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award.
Moreover, the following individuals are not eligible to be candidates for medal and/or awards during their terms of service and one year after the term is finished (meaning that the nomination for these individuals cannot be accepted during their term, but can be accepted the subsequent year after the term ended):
- EGU President;
- EGU Vice-President;
- Council members (not including ex-officio members);
- Chair of the EGU committees;
Recipients of EGU (including EUG and EGS) awards cannot subsequently receive a lower level recognition from the EGU itself (e.g. a recipient of a Union medal cannot receive a division medal). It is possible to award recognition shared between individuals: in this case the relevant recognition will not subsequently be awarded for as many years as the number of recipients exceeds one. Members of the medal and award committees are not eligible for that medal / award in the two years after stepping down as committee members. Moreover, with respect to the awards and medals reserved for the early career and more recently established scientists we refer to the Union definition of early career scientist.
Any person can be a candidate for only one EGU division medal and/or only one EGU Union medal each year. An early career scientist can be a candidate for the Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award for one division only each year.
Medal committee members cannot submit nominations or write support letters for the medals they are serving for.
Nominations for all the medals and awards are to be submitted online by 15 June midnight (GMT +1) of each year (absolute deadline). Only EGU members can submit nominations for all EGU medals and awards. Then, proposals will be forwarded to the chair of the relevant medal committee. Nominations for EGU medals and awards are not automatically renewed for the subsequent year. A person can receive one EGU medal or award only each year, and self-nominations are not accepted.
Nominations should include the following items in PDF format:
For the division and Union medals
- Nomination letter (one page). This must clearly detail why the candidate deserves this recognition, in particular focus on the candidate's scientific contributions to the field, their importance, their impact on the discipline and their implications for the future. The new views and insights that have been stimulated by the candidate's work are particularly relevant.
- Curriculum Vitae (two pages). A summary of the candidate's CV, including the candidate’s name, address, history of employment, degrees, research experience, honours, and service to the community.
- Selected bibliography (two pages). A list of selected publications by the candidate that best support the nomination. It should also state briefly the candidate’s total number and types of publications and citations.
- Supporting letters. Between three and five letters of support (maximum one page each) should be submitted. These letters should clearly establish the nominee's recognised contribution to the field.
For the Union Service Award
- Nomination letter (one page). This must clearly detail why the candidate deserves this recognition, in particular focus on the candidate's scientific contributions to the Union.
- Curriculum Vitae (one page), with particular emphasis on the candidate's activity in the Union.
- Supporting letters. One or two letters of support (maximum one page each). These letters should clearly establish the nominee's contribution to the Union.
For the outstanding early career scientists awards
- Nomination letter (half page) including the division that the candidates research is most applicable to.
- Curriculum Vitae. A summary of the candidate's CV (one page) including their date of birth and the date when their highest degree qualification was received.
- Selected bibliography. A list of selected publications by the candidate that best support the nomination (half page). It should also state briefly the candidate’s total number and types of publications and citations.
The whole nomination package for the award must not exceed two pages, otherwise the nomination will not be accepted.
To increase diversity in the group of EGU awardees and medallists, we encourage the EGU membership to consider gender, geographical and cultural balance when nominating outstanding Earth, planetary and space scientists at various career stages.
Selection of candidates
Any EGU medal or award is selected through a rigorous assessment of the candidates and their merits. The EGU Council, the medal and award committees members and the Union and division officers are committed to soliciting the nomination of deserving individuals by avoiding conflicts of interest. Medals and awards may not be conferred in a given year if high-quality nominations are not received.
Candidates for the Union and division medals are evaluated by the respective Union and division medal committees (with the exception of the outstanding early career scientists awards) before final approval by the Council.
If only one nomination is received for a Union or division medal, the Union Awards Committee will assess the merits of the candidate and may seek the help of external peers to ensure that the candidate is high profile and deserving. The EGU reserves the right to not confer the medal when there is only one nomination.
The assessment made by the Union Awards Committee is approved by the Council before medals are conferred.
Candidates for the Union Service Award are evaluated by the Union Awards Committee and finally approved by the Council.
Candidates for the Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award are first evaluated by the relevant division presidents who forward the best candidate to the chair of the Union Awards Committee. Four candidates are then selected by the Council and awarded at the Union level (Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists). The remaining best candidates are awarded by the relevant division.
The president will then inform the awardees and medallists appropriately and will invite them to the next EGU General Assembly, where the awards and medals will be presented. The president of the division is then asked to take all necessary actions for inviting the division medallist to give a medal lecture at the General Assembly.
In parallel, the Programme Committee of the next EGU General Assembly incorporates the corresponding potential medal lectures into the overall programme of the meeting, either as stand-alone talks or as invited contributions in selected sessions.
The Union awards and medals are presented by the president during the EGU Award Ceremony at the General Assembly, while the division medals are presented by the respective division presidents at the beginning of the award and medal lectures in question. The division medallists are introduced during the Award Ceremony.
Time schedule the Union and division awards and medals
| 1 January – 15 June | Open for submissions |
|---|---|
| 15 June – 31 August | Survey of all suggestions by the respective award and medal committees. With respect to the Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award / Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists, the presidents of the divisions will evaluate their proposals between 15 June–30 June midnight (GMT +1), while the Council will select max. four candidates from all suggested by the Divisions. |
| 1 – 30 September | Peer assessment of the nominated candidates by the Union Awards Committee. |
| October | Final approval of the candidates by the Union Council at its fall meeting. |
| October/November | Awardees and medallists are informed that they will receive their award/medal at the next General Assembly of the Union. |
General Assembly awards
In relation with its General Assemblies, the Union presents a number of special awards, such as the Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards to further improve the overall quality of poster and PICO presentations and most importantly, to foster the excitement of younger colleagues in presenting their work in form of a poster and/or PICO.
Criteria for application
Eligible for the Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Awards are students who:
- are first author and personally present the poster or PICO at the conference;
- satisfy one of the following criteria:
- are a current undergraduate (e.g., BSc) or postgraduate (e.g., MSc, PhD) student;
- are a recent undergraduate or postgraduate student (conferral of degree after 1 January of the year preceding the conference) who are presenting their thesis work.
Please note that each first author can register only one abstract (poster or PICO) for the OSPP contest at the General Assembly.
Procedure of application
Authors may express their interest in participating in the OSPP contest when submitting their abstract. With the letter of schedule, authors are informed about the final form of their presentation: oral, poster or PICO. In case of poster or PICO, students fulfilling the above criteria can register for OSPP by selecting the respective link in the letter of schedule. In case of more than one poster and/or PICO presentation as a first author, students are asked to decide which presentation should participate in the OSPP contest. The student names are then forwarded to the OSPP coordinators of the respective programme group. Authors receive a confirmation email after the OSPP registration deadline (which is about two weeks after the letter of schedule).
Procedure of selection
If you participate in OSPP, please attach the OSPP label (blue SVG, blue PNG, yellow SVG, yellow PNG) to your poster board. Alternatively, you might include the label in the poster itself. If you participate with a PICO, you are kindly asked to add the OSPP label to your PICO presentation header.
The OSPP coordinator of each programme group sends out emails to all (co-)conveners with the list of OSPP abstracts to be judged in their session and asking them to nominate three judges for each presentation before the meeting. The (co-)conveners obtain prior consent from the judges and may choose to do part of the judging themselves. To avoid conflicts of interest, judges should not be involved in the work or supervision of the student. The OSPP coordinator checks before the meeting that enough judges have been assigned to each participating poster or PICO presentation and may nominate additional judges if necessary.
Evaluation forms for each OSPP presentation will then be made available to all judges via a personal link to the OSPP online system. These forms include a number of criteria to be evaluated by the judges. Criteria include the scientific quality of the presentation, the design, and the student’s ability to answer questions, with marks given from 0 to 10.
The judges evaluate the presentations at the General Assembly during the poster session or the PICO viewing time, respectively. Note, that the two-minute presentation of PICOs is not part of the award evaluation. Each judge is expected to speak to the student during the poster/PICO session because this guarantees some extra attendance for the student, and because the student’s ability to describe and defend their work is part of the OSPP evaluation criteria. The judges are asked to work confidentially. The judges then fill in the evaluation forms online.
After the General Assembly, the OSPP programme group coordinator proposes a ranking among all the participating posters and PICOs (one combined list) in the programme group based on average marks that are automatically compiled from all evaluation forms. The top presentations of this ranking will get the award. The number of awards in each programme group should depend on the quality and the number of participating presentations in that year. In general, the number of awards should be small to keep the contest competitive and the award a special distinction. The programme group chair / division president ultimately decides on the awards based on the ranking, no later than two months after the General Assembly.
Award presentation
Each awardee is notified by the EGU OSPP coordinator. Awardees are asked to submit a short statement on affiliation and research interests (two to three sentences), a portrait photo and their PICO presentation or a PDF of their poster to the EGU Executive Office. The information is published on the EGU OSPP award website. The awardees receive a conference fee waiver for the next EGU General Assembly and are invited to submit a paper (where the awardee is first author) free of publication costs to one of the EGU journals. At the respective division meeting held at the next General Assembly, each awardee receives an award certificate.