Call for nominations

This document describes how this award series will operate and the rules & procedures governing nomination and selection of candidates.

The award will comprise

• A certificate
• A cash prize
• A travel grant to attend the ESCAPE event where the award will be presented

The award will be presented

• At an ESCAPE-event during an even-numbered year (ie. 2006, 2008, etc), in plenary session
    
• The EFCE Excellence Award in Recognition of an Outstanding PhD Thesis on CAPE 2008 will be presented at ESCAPE'18, to be held in Lyon, France, from 1 to 4 June 2008.
  PhD theses published between 1 January 2006  and 31 December 2007 may be nominated for evaluation,  the closing date being 31st December 2007 .

Eligibility

• Any PhD supervisor at a PhD-awarding institution in an EFCE member country may make one nomination ( any subsequent nominations from the same supervisor will be rejected ) on behalf of a PhD-student.
• The nominated PhD Thesis must address a topic relevant to the field of CAPE - Computer Aided Process Engineering, the general scope of which is defined on the EFCE CAPE WP website ( www.cape-wp.kt.dtu.dk ).
• The nominated Thesis must have been published during the two calendar years preceding the closing date for nominations.

Nomination procedure, supporting documentation & closing date

• Nominations should be submitted as PDF files via email to the "PhD award committee" ( ).
• Supporting documentation : nominations should be submitted as a single package and must contain the following information, clearly set out:

-  Name and address of nominee (PhD-student)
-  Name of supervisor
-  Name & address of institution & department
-  PhD Thesis title
-  Date work commenced
-  Date PhD awarded and Thesis published (note that the Thesis must have been completed and published and the PhD
   degree examined and awarded) ( Note that this must be within the two calendar years prior to the closing date ) .
-  Three letters of recommendation (no more than two pages each), from the supervisor and two independent referees from
   different institutions (one of whom could be the national delegate to the EFCE CAPE WP), outlining the key contribution to
   CAPE research and/or practice and stating clearly why the Thesis is considered to be truly outstanding and thus deserving
   the Award of Excellence.
-   An extended abstract in English (maximum 10 pages) containing the following information: summary, problem addressed,
    state of the art, key innovations, applications/implementations/results, references.
-   At least one (but no more than two) refereed publications in English (in either a journal or the proceedings of a well-
   established conference series), with the candidate as first-named and primary author.
-  Upon request: A copy of the Thesis, as published (this will be returned after the evaluation is completed, on request)

Note that all of the above documentation must be submitted together as a complete package. Except for the PhD Thesis, all other documents should be submitted electronically. PhD Thesis should be sent only when requested. Nominations which do not conform to these requirements will be rejected .

Deadline : nominations must be submitted by the supervisor to reach the PhD Award Committee, without fail, no later than December 31st of an odd-numbered year (ie. 2005, 2007, etc). Late nominations will be rejected .

Evaluation procedure & timing

• The evaluation will be a two-step process:
  -   Step 1 : a sub-committee of the EFCE CAPE WP will review all the eligible nominations and produce a short-list of up to 
     5 candidates.
  -   Step 2 : a sub-committee nominated by EFCE will review the short-listed candidates and make the final decision.
• The winning candidate, if any, will be informed no later than March 31st of the year in which the award will be presented.
• The decisions of these sub-committees are final and no discussions of any kind will be entered into.

Publication of Selected Work

• The successful candidate will be invited to make a plenary presentation at the ESCAPE event at which the award is presented.
• The successful candidate will be invited to prepare a paper for publication (based on the extended abstract) as a "guest paper" in an appropriate EFCE Journal.