Nominations are invited for the annual VeTSS Doctoral Dissertation Award. This award aims to recognise excellence in research by PhD students in the UK working on VeTSS-aligned topics, e.g. as outlined in the VeTSS problem book.  This call will present three awards for dissertations published in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Deadline for nominations: Friday 16th of May, 16:00 GMT
Notification deadline: Monday 2nd June

Assessment Criteria: The award committee will consider the significance and the contribution of the dissertations, including the originality of the research work, methodological soundness and awareness of existing research, possible impact, the clarity and skill of the written work and any other relevant factors.

Award and Ceremony
The award will be presented at the VeTSS Annual Conference (to take place on June 6th 2025) and is accompanied by a prize of £1,000, as well as an award certificate.

All decisions are final and cannot be appealed. The committee shall have the option to decline to make an award, if no suitable nominations are presented.

The winners are expected to attend the VeTSS annual conference and give a short presentation of their work.

Eligibility:
To be eligible for the award, a student must have successfully completed their PhD at a UK university and for the (final version of their) PhD thesis to have been officially published (e.g. in the host university library) within the following periods:

2022 Award: theses published between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022
2023 Award: theses published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023
2024 Award: theses published between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024

How to nominate:
Candidates for the awards must be nominated by one of the following:

  • One of their supervisors (primary or secondary)
  • One of their PhD examiners
  • A close collaborator (with whom the candidate has published as a co-author).

We are purposely keeping the nomination process as lightweight as possible. Nominations must consist of one single pdf file containing:

  • Dissertation title: (including any subtitle)
  • Full name and affiliation of the student
  • A copy of PhD award certificate
  • A list of papers and artifacts (if applicable) authored by the nominee (directly resulting from the PhD work), including the publication venue
  • A summary (max 500 words) of the PhD contributions, including a link to a downloadable PDF copy of the dissertation
  • A recommendation letter from the nominator describing why the nominee’s dissertation should receive the award, highlighting the impact of the research

Procedure:
Please send nominations to contact@vetss.org.uk  by 16:00 Friday 16th of May. We are sorry but we cannot consider late submissions. If you have any questions, you are very welcome to contact us.