Contest for PhD scholars & post doc fellows on popular science writing

By Sunderarajan Padmanabhan

New Delhi: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has called for entries from post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D scholars for a writing contest where they can hope to get a prize of up to Rupees one lakh for a write up explaining their research work in simple and easy to understand language.

The scheme, named `Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research’ or AWSAR, is designed to simultaneously bring to the fore writing skills of young scientists and promote scientific temperament in society. It provides for one award of Rs. 1 lakh and 20 other prizes of Rs. 10,000 each for post-doctoral fellows. For Ph.D. scholars, there are three top awards carrying cash prizes of Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 25,000 respectively and 100 other prizes of Rs. 10,000 each.

The contest is open to all Indian students pursuing Ph.D or post-doctoral fellowship in any stream of science and technology. The only conditions are that entries should be submitted within the tenancy period of the students’ research and the write up must relate to the research topic they are pursuing. The last day for submitting the entries is September 30.

The winners will be awarded at a function on February 28 to mark the National Science Day. More than 3000 young scientists had participated in the contest last year. The Department of Science and Technology and Vigyan Prasar have developed a website, where students can get tips on how to write popular science articles and other aspects of the scheme.

(India Science Wire)