Student paper competition

Sponsored by OPTICAL MATERIAL EXPRESS (OMEx)

A Journal of the Optica Publishing Group

All student participants are invited to enter the STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION. In the following, we define a student as a person that aims to present a paper at the Congress, which has been done in the context of some work that leads to an academic degree. This comprises Bachelor, Master, or PhD students. In addition, work done in the context of an academic course is eligible. The paper, an application form, and all supporting documentation for the student paper competition must be submitted through the Congress website prior to the paper submission deadline.

Submission and Evaluation Procedure

The student needs to be registered at this website to submit its paper and fill out the form for entering the student paper competition. This form will become accessible via the "Student paper competition" item, in the "Participant profile", in the right column of the webpage after login on the Congress website.

During the submission process, the student will be asked to upload:

A CV of personal scientific activity.
An exact title of the paper submitted for review.
An endorsement letter signed by the student's main supervisor/advisor stating that the paper is the result of the student's work. If the student has multiple supervisors/advisors, this fact must be explicitly stated in the endorsement letter.

The student must be the first author of the submitted paper, with co-authors limited to the student’s formally appointed supervisors or advisors. If the student has more than one formally appointed supervisor or advisor, this must be clearly stated in the endorsement letter. The Committee reserves the right to exclude papers with an excessively large number of authors, as well as those where the endorsement letter does not convincingly clarify who the formally appointed advisors are.
No additional student can be a co-author of the paper.

The student competition papers will undergo a regular review. Additionally, the student competition applications will be evaluated by the Award Committee and may get shortlisted as finalists. Up to five finalists are selected in total. Whether the students are selected as finalists will be communicated to the students in due time. The registration fee of all shortlisted finalists will be waived. Only one paper per student will be considered. In case of multiple entries with different papers, the student will be excluded from the competition.

The shortlisted finalists of the student paper competition will present their papers at the regular technical sessions in accordance with the conference program. In addition, they will be required to present their papers again at a dedicated interactive poster session during the Congress. The members of the Award Committee will interact with the students during the poster presentation and will elect the winner.

Awarding Ceremony

The winner of the best student paper will be announced at the Congress closing ceremony.

List of Awards:

First prize: Award certificate, Omex Publication Fee waive, and cash prize 300 €
Second prize: Award certificate, and cash prize 200 €
Third prize: Award certificate, and cash prize 100 €