DST AWSAR Award 2020 – Contest for PhD Scholars & Post Doc Fellows

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has called for entries for the DST AWSAR program from post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D. scholars.  AWSAR is a writing contest that stands for `Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research’. Participants 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.

Basic Guidelines for Submitting a Popular Science Story under Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (DST AWSAR) Programme.

DST AWSAR program shall have the following guidelines for its implementation:

• Any Indian citizen pursuing a Ph.D. or Post Doctoral Fellowship in any Science and Technology (S&T) stream is eligible to apply under AWSAR.
• The scholars should be enrolled in the PhD program from Government approved Institutions for the last two years. Post Doctoral Fellows (PDF) associated with any recognized institute can also apply.
• Preference will be given to applicants with the published paper(s) of their research work. Both full-time and part-time Ph.D. students will be invited for larger participation.
• The article should indicate a complete research story in simple language to be understood by the general public. No complex figures, graphs, equations or formulae should be included except self-explanatory infographics which may be formulated for effective communication.
• Only original articles sent exclusively for nomination for the AWSAR award will be accepted.  Articles previously published elsewhere, or simultaneously sent for publication elsewhere, are not acceptable.
• The applicants are requested to mention the theme, title of the paper along with their name, affiliation, and contact details in the submitted article.
• Articles submitted should carry a declaration that the article is original and has not been previously published elsewhere.
• Article of 1000-1500 words (A4-size with 2.5 cm margin on all sides, single column, Times New Roman font, font size 12, 1.5 line spacing written in MS Word) will be accepted for further scrutiny.
• Applicants found guilty of plagiarism and multi-story submission will be blacklisted and debarred from being participating in the future.
• All articles should be submitted through an online portal.
• A panel of eminent scientists and science communicators constituted by DST will select the best 100 entries received from Ph.D. scholars and 20 best entries received from postdoctoral fellows.
• The award will cover the following two broad categories

1. The top three entries/write-ups by the Ph.D. scholars would be awarded the cash prizes of  1,00,000,  50,000 and  25,000, respectively. Also, 100 selected entries/write-ups, by the Ph.D. scholars, would be awarded the cash prizes of ₹10,000 each, every year. The award will include a cash prize, a certificate of appreciation and an opportunity for the winning articles to be published.
2. One outstanding story, by the post-doctoral fellows, will be given a cash prize of  1,00,000. Also, 20 selected entries/write-ups submitted by the post-doctoral fellows will be given a cash prize of  10,000 each and a certificate of appreciation.

Entries would be invited from research scholars and PDFs who wish to publish their research in a way that would interest non-scientific audiences. The story should focus on answering the queries such as why does my research matter? Why is it important? Why does it, interest researchers? Why should it interest the reader? objectively. The article must be based on the research undertaken by the individual researcher. The article could be on complete or part of the research conducted, but it should not be a general review of the area and must have the component of new knowledge created as part of the research.

The article must aim at the general audience through popular writing and should not be published elsewhere. It should be written in easy to understand language to convey the significance of the research for its outreach.

Eligibility criteria for article submission
The following are the eligibility criteria for submitting the article for award:

• The entries will be invited from the youth pursuing PhD in S&T and Post Doc fellows from a recognized University/R&D Institute.
• Applicants must be an Indian citizen.
• Applicants can only submit single article in a year. Re-application by applicants from previous years is encouraged, as long as the eligibility criteria continue to be met. However, past winners of the Award will not be eligible to submit a research story second time in the same category.

Selection Criteria for DST AWSAR
The following will be the criteria for judging the entries

1) The entries will be judged on the basis of accuracy, clarity, insightfulness, fairness, and resourcefulness.
2) The entries should convincingly answer the questions such as why does the research matter? Does the article explain the writer’s research in a way that is easy to comprehend? Is it a compelling read? etc.
3) An Expert Panel of science communicators, media persons, subject experts and practitioners, constituted by DST, will evaluate the submitted science stories.

Award categories
A) Selection of best 100 entries of popular science stories and prizes under DST AWSAR.

For Ph.D. researchers: The initial screening of the entry will be done by expert panel. 100 entries will be selected and each will be awarded with cash prize of   10,000/- along with Certificate of Appreciation.
For Postdoc fellows: Twenty entries would be selected from articles submitted by PDFs relating to their line of research. Each will be awarded with cash prize of   10,000/- along with a Certificate of Appreciation.

B) Selection of top three leading stories
For PhD researchers: The top three articles/stories will be selected from the leading 100 stories. Further, they will be awarded with the cash prize of   1,00,000/-, Rs.50,000/- and   25,000/- respectively.
For Post doc fellows: One outstanding article/story will be selected from the leading 25 stories. Further the same will be awarded with the cash prize of   1,00,000/-.