YSOPP Guidelines

General Information

YSOPP Coordinator: Andreas Guentner

Click here to download the YSOPP label.

The general aim of the "Young Scientists' Outstanding Poster Paper (YSOPP) Award" is to help to increase the general interest in the poster sessions at the EGU General Assemblies and to enhance their visibility, to further improve the overall quality of poster presentations and most importantly, to foster the excitement of younger colleagues in presenting their work in form of a poster.

The awards are presented by the Divisions of the Union, but not all Divisions are presently making this award. The Divisions presenting this award for the EGU General Assembly 2009 are:

  • Interdivision Sessions (IS)
  • Division on Atmospheric Sciences (AS)
  • Division on Biogeosciences (BG)
  • Division on Climate: Past, Present, Future (CL)
  • Division on Cryospheric Sciences (CR)
  • Division on Energy, Resources & the Environment (ERE)
  • Division on Geodesy (G)
  • Division on Geomorphology (GM)
  • Division on Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology (GMPV)
  • Division on Hydrological Sciences (HS)
  • Division on Natural Hazards (NH)
  • Division on Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics (NP)
  • Division on Ocean Sciences (OS)
  • Division on Planetary & Solar System Sciences (PS)
  • Division on Stratigraphy, Sedimentology & Palaeontology (SSP)
  • Division on Solar-Terrestrial Sciences (ST)
  • Division on Tectonics & Structural Geology (TS)

 

Procedure for Application

Eligible for this award are MS and PhD students as well as recent graduates (conferral of degree after 01 January of the year preceding the conference, i.e. 2008 for the meeting in 2009) presenting their thesis work provided they are the first author and personally present their poster at the conference.

With the "Notice of Schedule" authors will be informed about the final status of the presentation of their paper: oral or poster. Young scientists meeting the criteria above and having been selected to present a poster may register to participate in the YSOPP award contest of their respective division by using the link indicated in the "Notice of Schedule". Thereby, registration with the Copernicus Office and the abstract ID-Nr. of the respective presentation are required. The student names will then be forwarded to YSOPP coordinators of the respective division together with the additional information such as email address, poster title, abstract ID, 'on-display' time.

 

Procedure for Selection

The YSOPP coordinator of each division sends out an email to all conveners giving them the names of the posters to be judged in their session and asking them to nominate three judges per poster before the meeting. The conveners obtain prior consent from the judges and may choose to do part of the judging themselves. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, judges should not be involved in the work or supervision of the student. The coordinator checks before the meeting that enough judges have been assigned to each participating poster and may nominate additional judges if necessary.

The division coordinator prepares appraisal forms for each poster and judge. These forms include a number of criteria which are to be judged by the referees regarding the scientific quality, the poster design and the ability to answer questions with marks from 0 to 10. The YSOPP division coordinator may send the appraisal forms to the judges by email before the meeting, or the conveners pick up the printed forms at the EGU facility desk at the main entrance of the conference building and hand them out to the judges during the poster session. This procedure has to be individually organized at the division level according to their preferences.

The judges evaluate their posters during the poster session and fill in the appraisal forms. Each judge is expected to actually speak to the student during the poster session because this guarantees some extra attendance for the student and because his ability to describe and defend his work is part of the YSOPP evaluation criteria. The judges are asked to work confidentially. The judges then return their forms to an inbox at the EGU facility desk during the meeting or, if needed, by mail to the YSOPP division coordinator after the meeting.

After the meeting the YSOPP division coordinator analyses the appraisal forms, compiles average marks for each poster, and proposes a ranking among all the participating posters in the division based on these marks. The top posters of this ranking will get the award. The number of awards in each division should depend on the quality and the number of participating posters in that year. In general, the number of awards should be small to keep the contest competitive and the award a particular distinction. The Division President finally decides on the awards based on the ranking. The final decision should be made not later than about two months after the meeting.

 

Award Presentation

Each awardee is notified after the decision has been made. The names are published in the EGU newsletter and on the EGU YSOPP web-site where the awardee also gets the opportunity to link his poster. The awardees receive a conference fee waiver for the next EGU General Assembly and are invited to submit a paper to one of the EGU journals. At the business meeting of the respective division held at the next General Assembly, each awardee receives an award certificate.