Awarded for the best talk at the Annual Meeting. All student members of the Palaeontological Association, and all members of the Association who are early-career researchers within one year of the award of a higher degree (PhD or MSc), excluding periods of parental or other leave, are eligible for consideration for this award. The prize is announced immediately after the oral sessions at the end of the Annual Meeting. Winners will receive an official certificate and free membership to the Association for one year.
Previous awardees
A full list of previous recipients can be viewed here: Medal and Award Winners.
Annual Meeting prize awards policy
Here we outline the Palaeontological Association's policies for awarding prizes at our annual meeting.
1.1 At each annual meeting we will award three (or more) President’s Prizes for the best oral presentations and three (or more) Council Poster Prizes.
1.2 All student members of The Palaeontological Association, and all members of the Association who are early-career researchers within one year of the award of a higher degree (PhD or MSc), excluding periods of parental or other leave, are eligible for consideration for this award. All eligible members are automatically opted in and this will be confirmed on the acceptance emails. Members may opt out at any time by contacting the Association.
1.3 Prize winners will receive a certificate and free membership to the Association for one year (that will start at the expiration of current membership). Prize winners are asked to contact the Executive Officer (executive@palass.org), if there are any issues with membership re-enrollment.
1.4 Prizes are based on merit, and will be judged by a panel comprising members of council and PalAss members using poster or talk score sheets (see below for link).
1.5 Judges will be separated into two teams supervised by senior members of the Association council. One team will attend all eligible talks, and another will view all eligible posters. Judges will be named in the abstract booklet. When possible prize judges will be highlighted by a distinct lanyard and/or symbol on their meeting name badge.
1.6. It is important to note that conversing or engaging with judges is not required to win the talk or poster prize.
1.7 It is mandatory that judges read ‘Unconscious Bias statements’ and have completed a ‘Professional Standards & Behaviour Declaration’ before judging. Judges must also declare any conflicts of interest in advance of judging. If you are concerned that this may not have occurred, please contact the Meetings Coordinator (meetings@palass.org) as soon as possible.
1.7 All members who are eligible for the prizes are entitled to feedback on their presentation/poster. However, this feedback will not be given automatically, and must be requested within one month of the annual meeting. Requests for feedback should be made to the Meetings Coordinator (meetings@palass.org).
1.8 Prize winners are expected to allow their poster/talks to be made available online on the Association website, as references to future candidates as prize winning examples (with precautions that unpublished data be protected). If data is unpublished and sensitive, then placeholders and redacted slides can be used, with the intention to submit the full presentation within an appropriate time frame.
1.9 Prize winners may be approached by the Association to contribute to different engagement aspects of the Association based on their prize winning research (e.g. the YouTube channel, Newsletter etc.).
Scoring sheet
The scoresheet used by members of the committee judging this award can be viewed here: Annual Meeting Talk Score Sheet.