After an energizing International Open Access Week, we are encouraged to see academics and librarians discussing the many ways to build a more open research landscape. In reality, commitments to openness can be easier said than done. We know that in particular there are a number of obstacles for early career researchers (ECRs) who may have limited options when it comes to where they publish. To offer further support for ECRs, we are launching a PeerJ Awards program to help encourage conference organizers to recognize and reward the efforts of those individuals demonstrating a commitment to rigorous science.

By teaming up with a number of conferences to offer these awards, we are looking to make it as easy as possible for organizers to reward excellence in science and signal to the wider research community that open science is better science. Additionally, these awards are specifically encouraged for early career researchers in the hope that their efforts will become even more valued as these individuals pave the way for a more rigorous and open future.

PeerJ Awards, often for “Best Poster” or “Best Presentation”, provide the winner with a free PeerJ paper (upon submission and acceptance through our normal peer-review platform) and an interview about their current research posted on the PeerJ blog. Announcements of conferences and award winners are tweeted and included in our newsletter as well.

Recent and upcoming conferences offering PeerJ Awards:

2019

9th Conference of the International Biogeography Society, Malaga, Spain, Jan 8-12, 2019

Transition Path Sampling Simulations via PyRETIS, Lorentz Center, Leiden, The Netherlands, March 11-15, 2019

EMBO Workshop: Visualising Biological Data (VIZBI 2019), Heidelberg, Germany, March 13-15, 2019

Future of Individualized (Genomic) Medicine, Scripps Research Translational Institute, San Diego, California, March 14-15, 2019

Ohio Zebrafish Undergraduate Research Conference, Ashland, Ohio, March 23, 2019

10th Mexican Congress of Coral Reefs, Colima, Mexico, April 2-5, 2019

Annual Meeting of the French Paleontological Association, Aix-en-Provence, France, April 16-20, 2019

18th Brazilian Congress of Biomechanics, Manaus, Brazil, May 1-4, 2019

2nd International Conference on Holobionts, Montréal, Canada, May 8-10, 2019

WSeS-8 Selenium Sulphur Redox and Catalysis, Perugia, Italy, May 30-June1, 2019

Progressive Palaeontology 2019, Birmingham, UK, June 6-8, 2019

11th International Young Scientists School – Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, Novosibirsk, Russia, June 24-28, 2019

Science of Magic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, July 14-16, 2019

BioVis: Biological Data Visualizations (ISCB), Basel, Switzerland, July 22, 2019

MechanoChemBio 2019, Montréal, Canada, July 29-31, 2019

Vocal Interactions between Humans Animals and Robots (VIHAR), London, UK, Aug 29-30, 2019

International Bioacoustics Council, Brighton, UK, Aug 31-Sept 5, 2019

3rd International Workshop on the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, Erlangen, Germany, Sept 2-5, 2019

Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Society (Paläontologische Gesellschaft), Munich, Germany, Sept 15-18, 2019

6th Intl. Food Science and Technology Congress, San Jose, Costa Rica, Sept 17-19, 2019

XX Italian Congress of Ornithology, Naples, Italy, Sept 26-29, 2019

4th Protein Biophysics at the end of the world, Montevideo, Uruguay, Oct 1-4, 2019

Third Argentine Congress of Malacology (3CAM), Bahía Blanca, Argentina, Dec 4-6, 2019

Argentinian Scientific Computing Workshop (TAC²), San Luis, Argentina, Dec 5-6, 2019

Biomembrane Days, Berlin, Germany, Dec 11-13, 2019

2018

Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA III), Curaçao, Oct 19-21, 2018

Microbial Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics, Portugal, Oct 22-24, 2018

BBCC Bioinformatics and Computational Biology in Campania, Italy, Nov 19-21, 2018

Exploring Human Host-Microbiome Interactions in Health and Disease, Wellcome Genome Campus, UK, Dec 5-7, 2018

Young Researchers Day, Roscoff Marine Station, France, Dec 7, 2018

Reef Futures 2018, Coral Restoration Consortium, Key Largo, Florida, Dec 10-14, 2018

Do you have or know of an upcoming event that might like to offer a PeerJ Award?

Please get in touch with our community manager, Sierra Williams, at sierra.williams@peerj.com.

About PeerJ: PeerJ publishes two Open Access, peer-reviewed publications: PeerJ serving the Biological, Medical and Environmental Sciences and PeerJ Computer Science. Additionally, PeerJ is thrilled to be accepting submissions as of January 2019 for five newly launched, Open Access PeerJ Chemistry journals. We also publish PeerJ Preprints which is an innovative ‘preprint server’ covering Biology, Medical, Environmental, and Computer Science.

PeerJ’s mission is to efficiently publish the world’s knowledge. We aim to make Open Access affordable, fast, and easier for researchers and institutions. Looking to publish your journal article with a researcher-led publisher? Submit your manuscript here.