How to participate:
Submit an essay (maximum length of 2000 words) about the future of developmental biology research. It can focus on the future of a particular subfield of research, emerging techniques or model organisms, changes in science policy that affect the field, or anything else that you see as affecting the future of the discipline.
Appointed judges will nominate a selection of the best essays, which will all be posted on the Node. Authors of the nominated essays will be rewarded with an Amazon gift certificate worth £50.
Readers of the Node will then vote for their favourite of the nominated essays. The essay with the most votes will be published in Development.
(Please note that nominated essays will not be copy-edited before they appear on the Node. Only the winning essay after the voting round will be copy-edited before publication in Development.)
Essay submission:
* Entries should be submitted as a Word document, sent as attachment to thenode@biologists.com before July 2, 2012, 12:00 GMT (noon)
* You may submit no more than one entry per person.
* Your essay must not have been previously published anywhere (including on a blog).
* You retain copyright to your essay, but by submitting you give us permission to reproduce your essay on the Node, and if your essay is selected as winner, you grant Development exclusive rights to publication. (See Development‘s Author Rights for more information.)
* To be eligible to participate in this contest, you should currently be actively involved in research in developmental biology or a related field (such as stem cell science or genetics), or have worked in this area within the past three years.
* Entries must include a title and the name of the author at the top of the page.
* In your submission email, please include a brief (one or two sentence) biography. We will use this biography to determine your eligibility, and, should you be nominated, to include with your essay on the Node.
* Entrants should submit under their own name.
* We regret that we are unable to accept postal entries.
Voting round:
* Voting will start after July 19, 2012, and will be announced on https://thenode.biologists.com
* One vote per person
* Closing date of the voting round will be announced when this round starts.
See our general rules for competitions for more details.