2016 Geoff Hall Scholarships

EMWA are pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2016 Geoff Hall Scholarships. The essay title for this year is: “Good medical writing saves lives”.

Eligible applicants must be new medical writers: that is, they intend to enter the profession or have been employed at the time of the submission deadline for no longer than one year as a professional medical writer, including freelance work. They need not be current members of EMWA.

Applicants must include a short statement declaring what work they do or have been doing and that they meet the eligibility criteria. This statement must include the amount of time that the entrant has worked in the field of medical writing or any similar activity. If an entrant is unsure of their eligibility, they must provide full details of potentially relevant past experience to the EMWA Award Review Board. Failure to do so may lead to withdrawal of the scholarship.

Submission of entries and announcement of winning entries

The submission deadline for entries is 31 October 2016. Eligible applicants may re-apply in subsequent years. Previous scholarship holders are not eligible. Submission of the essay and an eligibility statement should be made to the following email address: info@emwa.org.

The winners will be notified by the Chair of the EMWA Award Review Board with a view to attending the EMWA Spring Conference in the following year and being presented with the award.

The winning entry or entries will be subsequently published on the EMWA website and in the EMWA journal Medical Writing.

The winners agree not to disclose publically that they have been awarded a scholarship until the announcement is made by EMWA. EMWA reserves the right to withdraw the award if this rule is broken. The winners will be reminded of this in the email informing them that they have been awarded a scholarship.

Essay requirements

The essay must be in English and not longer than 1000 words, excluding the title and any references, but including any subheadings. Essays may also include tables and figures, but each table or figure will be counted as 250 words. Longer entries will be rejected. Essays must be submitted as a Word document, with the word count clearly stated. The word count will be verified before the essay can be considered eligible.

The EMWA Award Review Board will judge the entries based on inspiration, originality and logical thought rather than a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. The EMWA Award Review Board will also judge the editorial standard of the essay. As a guide, the essay must be of a standard fit for publication in EMWA’s journal, Medical Writing, or another reputable English language journal, with at most only minor copy editing needed to correct language and to adapt the format to the journal’s requirements. All entries will be subject to plagiarism-checking software.

Number of awards per year

The EMWA Award Review Board may award up to two scholarships in any given year, depending on the quality of entries submitted. If no entries are of sufficient quality, no scholarship will be awarded in that year. The decision of the EMWA Award Review Board is final.

What could a Scholarship Award winner receive?

• Free membership for 2 years from January of the following year or from the first renewal of membership after the time of the award
• Free conference registration (4 conferences) over a maximum of 3 years starting from the time of the award
• One (1) free Foundation Workshop at the first conference.

Please inform any of your colleagues who may be eligible to enter this scholarship about this opportunity offered by EMWA.