Beginning in 2020, AoBP will award USD $3,000 annually to each of up to three early-career researchers who have dedicated considerable effort to advancing the goals and ideals of open science.
The AoBP ECOS Awards (Early Career Open Science) aim to promote and celebrate people who are changing science for the better. People who are willing to go against the grain of hype-driven science. Willing to resist cynical citation-chasing. Willing to share their data, code and ideas. Willing to stand up for those who have been historically excluded or mistreated in science. Willing to publish negative results. Willing to promote others who respect these things.
To be eligible for an AoBP ECOS Award, you must have been active in research involving plants and the environment within the last two years, and you must be no more than eight years post-PhD. Scientists of any rank or position are eligible (students, postdocs, technicians, faculty). Individuals can self-nominate or be nominated by others (with the nominee’s agreement).
Nomination instructions
Nominations must be submitted to buckley@aobplants.org by 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on 31 March 2020 as a single PDF document, containing the following:
- up to 500 words explaining the nominee’s contributions to open science in the sense described in the preamble above;
- *up to five visuals (figures, tables, images, etc.), including captions as needed;
- *up to one additional page containing any relevant references and/or URLs;
- *the nominee’s full name and contact details, including an email address;
- *if the nomination is submitted by someone other than the nominee, include in the PDF a signed acknowledgement by the nominee that they agree to be nominated.
*The items marked with an asterisk do not count towards the 500 word limit.
Judging procedure
Nominations will be evaluated and ranked by a panel of three individuals chosen by the AoBP senior editorial board (the Chief Editor and five Section Chief Editors). The panel will recommend awards, and the Chief Editor will approve the awards at his/her discretion. Awards will be announced later in 2020 (tentatively in June). After the first year of nominations and evaluations, we will collect feedback from the panel and awardees, and use that feedback to modify the procedure for future years.
What will happen if you are awarded an AoBP ECOS Award
We will request that each awardee take part in a teleconference interview (e.g., by Skype or similar) to discuss their contributions to open science and related matters. We will then prepare a series of posts to publicize the award and celebrate the awardee on social media, including the Twitter and Facebook accounts of AoBP, the Twitter accounts of the Chief Editor and Section Chief Editors, and the blog Botany One. Awardees will be free to use the monetary award itself for whatever they wish.
Questions?
Please contact AoBP Chief Editor Tom Buckley at buckley@aobplants.org with any questions that are not addressed above.