ELGRA’s Student Contest

Benefits and Rules

ELGRA (European Low Gravity Research Association) offers to undergraduate[1] students the possibility to present their recent research work performed under microgravity-related conditions to a broad community engaged in research in life and physical sciences in space. On this account, ELGRA invites student teams[2] to submit their work to the special Student Session that will take place during the next ELGRA Biennial Symposium in Florence (Italy), September 4-7, 2007.
All selected teams will be offered an honorary student membership to ELGRA for one year. Selected teams are expected to attend all three days of the meeting. Registration fees will be fully waived for the selected teams. In addition, students may apply for a financial support for travel and accommodation. Due to funding limitations early application is encouraged.
In addition, selected works will be automatically considered candidates for a distinction award that will be judged and announced during the meeting by a jury committee.

Further to the ELGRA Biennial Meeting, the following options of presentation will be offered:

• A special page on ELGRA’s website (www.elgra.org)
• ELGRA’s Newsletter

Students interested in this activity should submit their work by an e-mail to ELGRA vice-president, Thodoris Karapantsios (karapant@chem.auth.gr). The work must be presented in a comprehensive way within two A4 pages both in PDF and WORD format. The first page must include an extended abstract with the title, authors’ names and affiliations (plus the e-mail and phone of the corresponding author) appearing at the top. The second page must include plots, schematics or photos (in color or black & white) with appropriate captions.

Student teams must prepare (a) a poster (details on the exact format of the poster are given on ELGRA website) and (b) a short oral presentation lasting 7 minutes (3 more minutes will be left for questions). In preparing their contribution students should keep in mind:

• Is the title informative and a reflection of the content?
• Are the objectives clear and the incorporated assumptions valid?
• Is the work properly organized and well written?
• Are the approach, results and conclusions intelligible?
  
• To what extent the interpretations/conclusions are supported by the data?
  
• Are the plots/figures useful and all necessary? Are they of good quality?
• Is the referencing relevant, up to date and accessible?
  

ELGRA maintains the right to judge on the production quality of any submitted work and either accept it as it is or ask for improvement or reject it. A scientific committee appointed by ELGRA will review the submitted works and notify students.

Important dates:

Notice: Together with their work students must provide an official letter from their advisor stating clearly that he/she agrees with the participation of his/her students in ELGRA’s activities and that there is no copyright protection against publication of their work.