1. The Vanguardia de la Ciencia award is a joint initiative of the newspaper La Vanguardia and the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation that is convened annually with two objectives: a) to give visibility to excellent scientific research carried out in Spain; b) give visibility to research carried out by women to contribute to reducing the gender gap in the field of science.
2. The Vanguardia de la Ciencia award is awarded for scientific research published during the calendar year that is the subject of the call. Research published between January 1 and December 31, 2023 is eligible for the thirteenth edition of the award.
3. Candidate research must have a woman as principal investigator and/or first author whose main affiliation is an institution based in Spain.
4. Applications must be sent to the email address prizevanguardia@lavanguardia.es before June 15, 2024 at 11:59 p.m.
5. Two documents must be submitted: a) the scientific article in pdf format; b) a summary of the discovery and an assessment of its importance in a text of a maximum length of 2,000 characters.
6. The name and contact email address of the people who will present the research if selected must be indicated in the application. A maximum of two people can present research, of which at least one must be a woman, who must be its first authors (or co-first authors) or principal investigators (or co-principal investigators).
7. An evaluation committee made up of specialists in research and scientific communication will select, among all the candidates presented, eight finalists, evaluating criteria of scientific relevance and social impact. To ensure diversity, no discipline will have more than four finalists.
8. La Vanguardia will contact the people presenting the eight finalist investigations no later than September 6 to interview them. The authors of non-selected research will not be contacted.
9. La Vanguardia and the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera will announce the eight finalist investigations on September 15, 2024. Over the following four weeks La Vanguardia will publish interviews with the authors of said investigations.
10. La Vanguardia readers will be invited to vote for the research they consider most interesting through a survey that will be active on www.lavanguardia.com from September 15 at 9:00 a.m. to October 15 at 11:59 p.m.
11. The winning investigations will be determined from the vote of the readers, which will have a weight of two thirds, and the evaluation committee, which will have a weight of one third.
12. La Vanguardia will announce the three investigations that have received the most votes on October 20, 2024. It will not report the votes obtained by the other five finalists.
13. The authors of the three most voted investigations will present their work in a public event for a general audience at the award ceremony, which will be held in the La Pedrera building in Barcelona.
14. The winners will receive a sculpture inspired by Gaudí’s work as recognition and the corresponding diplomas.
15. Submission to the Vanguardia de la Ciencia award implies acceptance of the award rules.
