Russian Mineralogical Society (RMS) launches competitions in mineralogy, petrology, mineralogical crystallography, economical geology and geochemistry.

1. GENERAL INFORMATION AND ELIGIBILITY

   In 2009 the RMS launches two Competitions:
1) Outstanding scientific articles by young researchers;
2) Best scientific photo images and drawings.
   Any author of a scientific publication, photo image or drawing (the “Author”) can participate in the Competition independently of his/her scientific degree and position in an educational, research or other institution. In case of the Best scientific photo images and drawings Competition the Author must be the copyright owner of the photographic work or drawing (the “Work”). Competition experts are NOT eligible to participate in the Competition.
   Depending on the Author’s affiliation, the Author participate in either nominations for specialists from the Russian Federation (nominations are designated with the letter R) or nominations for specialists from the other world (nominations are designated with the letter W). Works submitted for Competition and the corresponding proposals may be written in English or in Russian.

2. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

   In order to enter the competition, the online submission form must be completed. Before filling the competition form, the Author must register on the Russian Mineralogical Society website (http://www.minsoc.ru/registration.php) and submit using the registration form his/her personal contact data (including the valid personal email, postal address and phone number). After the registration, the password will be sent on the designated personal email address of the Author. Using the personal login and password, the Author must complete the online submission form for the corresponding Competition (the submission form is located at http://www.minsoc.ru/award/, then follow the link “On-line submission system”). The proposal may be edited before the registration deadline. The opening date of the RMS Competitions 2009 is March 30, 2009. Only submissions through the RMS Internet-based on-line submission system are accepted. Proposals sent by post, e-mail, telex or facsimile will be rejected without notice.
   Every Work subjected for the Competition must be submitted within a separate proposal. Correctly submitted proposals will be accepted after verification by an Award Commission representative. Accepted proposal cannot be replaced or edited by the applicant. The applicant will be informed about the acceptance of the proposal through his/her email address.
   Entry deadline is September 15, 2009. All printed materials if they must be presented by the Author (see Preparation of Proposals) must reach the Russian Mineralogical Society before September 15, 2009.
   Russian Mineralogical Society Competitions 2009 contacts:
Address: 21st line 2; 199026 St. Petersburg, Russia.
Phone/Fax: +7 (812) 328-86-40.
Email: rmo@minsoc.ru – for organizational questions, admin@minsoc.ru – for technical questions.
Website: http://www.minsoc.ru/.

3. PREPARATION OF PROPOSALS FOR DIFFERENT CALLS

   a) Outstanding scientific articles by young researchers. The subject of a proposal should be an original scientific article published in any reviewed scientific journal from 2007 to 2009 and not participated in other RMS Competitions. The applicant should be the first author of the article. The age of the applicant should not exceed 33 full years by the submission date. Every Author can submit only one proposal. Authors submit proposals for the nomination YR2009 (specialists from the Russian Federation) and YW2009 (specialists from the other world).
   The proposal is organized in four fields, each to be filled in: (1) year of birth of the Author, (2) scanned passport pages with photo and principal information by the Author (including full names, nationality and date of birth) as a JPEG image file, (3) the full bibliographic data of the article subjected in proposal, and (4) the fulltext electronic version of the article in the PDF file format or in form of separate scanned article pages in a ZIP archive. Electronic versions of articles will not be published on the RMS website and will be deleted after the evaluation procedure.
   b) Best scientific photo images and drawings. The subject of the proposal should be a photograph or a drawing of a geological object. The subject of the Work should correspond to one of the following nominations:
1) «Ontogeny» (nomination is dedicated to the 100th year anniversary of Prof. Dmitry Grigoriev) – images of minerals, crystals and their intergrowths illustrating their evolution and genetic relations (nominations FOR2009 and FOW2009);
2) «Panorama» – images should demonstrate the objects of geological or mineralogical studies or the process of investigation as in the field as in the laboratory (nominations FPR2009 and FPW2009);
3) «Nanoworld» – images of geological/mineralogical objects demonstrating informative details on the nanoscale, i. e. which dimension(s) is less than 1 micrometer (nominations FNR2009 and FNW2009).
   Works that have earned any award, honorable mention or prize in any other commercially-sponsored competition are NOT eligible. The RMS reserve the right to ask the confirmation of the authorship, e.g., to submit the image with the alternative view of the sample, the image in original (not processed) form, the detailed description of the recording parameters etc. Every Author can submit up to three Works for every nomination.
   Besides the online submission of a proposal, a printed copy of the Work in original size and professional quality must be sent to the Russian Mineralogical Society.
   The fields of the electronic submission form are listed below:
1) the original image in JPEG format, suitable for printing in A4 or A3 quality (resolution not less than 300 dpi);
2) small-size preview of the Work in JPEG format (max. 150 kb; e.g., 640*480 pixels, 16 Mio colors);
3) Author’s title of the Work reflecting its content or artistic message;
4) information about the co-authorship (if present);
5) short description of the scientific and technical work the image was obtained within (including measurements of imaged objects, geographical placement etc.);
6) detailed equipment and techniques information;
7) official name of the laboratory/institution, where the image was obtained.
   The Author must consent to the use of his/her name and likeness, and the use of his/her Works, without additional compensation in any media or format for any purposes deemed appropriate by the RMS in the promotion of the Competition. The Author must attest to the fact that these Works are his/her original work and that he/she owns the rights to his/her submitted images.
   Persons found tampering with or abusing any aspect of this Competition or the RMS or Competition website, as solely determined by RMS, will be disqualified and RMS reserves its right to seek damages from any persons to the fullest extent of the law. By entering the Competition or participating in any Competition or prize-related activity, participants agree to release, discharge and hold harmless the RMS, their respective officers, directors and employees, from any injury, claim, loss or damages of any kind that may arise out of participation in the Competition or out of the acceptance, use, misuse or possession of Prizes. By participating, you agree to these Official Rules and to the decisions of RMS and the judges which are final and binding in all respects. Void where prohibited by law, rule or regulation. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Each winner must sign an affidavit of eligibility and compliance with the rules and a publicity release within thirty (30) days after the attempted notification. Failure to do so will result in disqualification and the selection of an alternate winner. Unless prohibited by law, each winner consents to the use by the RMS of the winner's name and images for publicity purposes, without additional compensation. All taxes, fees and surcharges on prizes won are the sole responsibility of the winner. Prizes are not transferable. This Competition is conducted in English and Russian (which will be given its everyday ordinary meaning) and any and all disputes will be resolved in the appropriate courts in the Russian Federation. Should there be a conflict between the laws of the Russian Federation and any other laws, the conflict will be resolved in favor of the laws of the Russian Federation.

4. EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS AND COMPETITION JUDGING

   Evaluation of proposals is organized by the RMS Award Commission consisting of RMS Presidium members. The resolutions of the Award Commission must be approved by the RMS Presidium before inuring. The Award Commission is responsible for distribution of the Competition Call announcements, control over the on-line Submission System, distribution of proposals between peer-reviewers, collection of the evaluation results and determination of Award winners. For each proposal, evaluators are selected and appointed by the Commission from its independent experts’ database, with a view to achieve maximum competence for the evaluation. Every proposal will be evaluated by three evaluators. The criteria governing the evaluation of proposals are given in the Evaluation forms for the RMS Competitions 2009 (Appendixes 1 and 2). Best proposals will be defined according to number of given points. The evaluation procedure is strongly confidential. The evaluators and members of the Award Commission cannot distribute this information. RMS does not inform applicants about the details of the evaluation process.
   The Award Commission will be created during June, 2009. The Award Commission delivers the proposals to the evaluators before 20.09.2009. The evaluation of applications and determination of winners will be completed before 25.09.2009. Winners will receive their prize-winning notification via electronic mail (e-mail).

5. AWARDING PROCEDURE

   Three best Works in the nominations YR2009 and YW2009 and the best Work in every nomination within FOR2009, FOW2009, FPR2009, FPW2009, FNR2009 and FNW2009 nomination will be awarded with the RMS Diploma. Depending on sponsoring the financial support for the Competitions winners are constituted. The details of the awarding (prices etc.) will be published on the RMS website before May 15, 2009.
   The awarding procedure will take place on the plenary session of the RMS Annual Session 2009 (Russia, Saint Petersburg Mining Institute, 8-10.10.2009). Awarded applicants are invited to the awarding. Three winners for every YR2009 and YW2009 nominations are invited to make plenary presentations and publish the extended abstracts at a RMS conference to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 2010. The selection of the corresponding conference depends on the scientific topic of the both awarded Work and the planned RMS conference.

6. INFORMATION SUPPORT

   The Rules and all supplementary information are published on the website of the Russian Mineralogical Society. Technical questions have to be referred to admin@minsoc.ru.
   The list of Competition participants and winners will be published on the RMS website. The list of Competition winners will be published in the scientific journal “Zapiski RMO (Proceedings of the Russian Mineralogical Society)” within the RMS Year Report for 2009.

Appendix 1. Evaluation form for the RMS Competition 2009 — Outstanding scientific articles by young researchers.

1. Merit of the innovation level of the studied problem:
□ very high (3 points)
□ significant (2 points)
□ not significant (1 point)
□ absent (0 points)

2. Merit of the scientific level of the work:
□ results are consistent to the world best developments (3 points)
□ results are consistent to national best developments (2 points)
□ ordinary work carried out on the modern level (1 point)
□ level of the work fall behind the modern level (0 points)

3. Merit of the scientific novelty and fundamental importance of results:
□ very high (an unique advanced work) (3 points)
□ high (work corresponds to the modern world level) (2 points)
□ medium (significant new knowledges are generated within the work) (1 point)
□ law (ordinary work) (0 points)

4. Merit of the economic and social impact (possible implementation of results):
□ very high (implementation is very expected and results are ready for it) (3 points)
□ high (results are ready for implementation) (2 points)
□ middle (implementation is possible) (1 point)
□ low (only hypothetic implementation) (0 points)

5. Literary perfection of the text:
□ high (2 points)
□ middle (1 point)
□ low (0 points)

6. Relevancy of the work to Russia:
□ all study is relevant in Russia (2 points)
□ some parts of study are relevant to Russia (1 point)
□ no relevancy (0 points)

7. Impact factor of the journal.
□ >2 (3 points)
□ 1-2 (2 points)
□ <1 (1 point)
□ not defined (0 points)

8. RMS membership of the principal author (to be filled by a RMS Presidium member):
□ Full member, Honorary member or corresponding member (1 point)
□ no membership (0 points)

Maximum number of points is 20.

Appendix 2. Evaluation form for the RMS Competition 2009 — Best scientific photo images and drawings.

1. Scientific and innovation merit (scientific topic, technique level, relevance):
□ very high (3 points)
□ significant (2 points)
□ ordinary work (0 points)

2. Technical merit (technical quality of the image, photographic excellence):
□ high (2 points)
□ ordinary, high-quality printing is possible (1 point)
□ amateur (0 points)

3. Aesthetics (artistic beauty or impact of the image):
□ very high (3 points)
□ high (2 points)
□ middle (1 point)
□ low (0 points)

4. Relevancy of the work or the object to Russia:
□ work is made in Russia or object is obtained in Russia (1 point)
□ no (0 points)

5. RMS membership of the principal author (to be filled by a RMS Presidium member):
□ Full member, Honorary member or corresponding member (1 point)
□ no membership (0 points)

Maximum number of points is 10.