Dear Colleagues,

It is with deepest regret that we announce that the MPs 2020 Travel Award has been postponed and will be held together with 2021 Travel Award due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has led to most conferences being postponed or canceled.

We are pleased to announce that MPs will instead be awarding the 2020–2021 Travel Award for junior scientists. The applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee composed of senior scholars from the MPs Editorial Board.

This prize provides financial support for the winner to attend an international conference to be held in 2021 in the fields of Life Sciences, Chemistry, and Biomedical Sciences, as well as in other relevant scientific fields, in order to give a presentation, present a poster, or both.

Candidate Requirements:

– Postdoctoral fellow or PhD student.
– Planning to attend an international conference in 2021 (oral presentation or poster).

Required Application Documents:

– Information about the conference that the applicant is planning to attend and the abstract that will be submitted.
– Curriculum Vitae and list of publications.
– Justification letter describing the focus of the research (max. 800 words).
– Letter of recommendation from a supervisor, research director, or department head, which also confirms the applicant’s status as a postdoctoral fellow/PhD student.

The winner (one awardee) will be awarded 800 CHF and a certificate.

Please submit your applications for the MPs 2020–2021 Travel Award online by 28 February 2021. The winner will be announced on the MPs website and prizes will be awarded at the end of March 2021.

Kind regards,
MPs Editorial Office

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the “MPs 2019 Best Paper Award” for review and research articles published in MPs from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019. One manuscript will receive the award. The paper will be selected after a thorough evaluation by the journal Award Committee led by the Editor-in-Chief, and the winner will be announced in March 2021.

Eligibility for the awards:

– Papers published in MPs from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019;
– Open to all career levels;
– Both regular and Special Issue submissions will be considered.

Selection Criteria:

The papers will be selected by the journal Award Committee according to the following criteria (data source: Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)):
– Scientific merit and broad impact;
– Relevance to the journal’s field;
– Originality of the research objectives and/or the ideas presented;
– Creativity of the study design or uniqueness of the approaches and concepts;
– Clarity of presentation;
– Citation and download rates in 2020.

Prizes:

– 500 CHF and a chance to publish a paper in MPs in 2021;
– A certificate.

The winner will be announced on the journal website in March 2021.

Kind regards,
MPs Editorial Office

It is with deepest regret that we announce the MPs 2020 Travel Award has been cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak since most conferences have been postponed or cancelled.

We are inviting applications for Travel Awards for postdoctoral fellows and PhD students to attend an international conference of their choice in 2020. The Travel Awards will consist of 800 Swiss Francs each. The nominations and applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee presided over by Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Fernando Albericio and Associate Editor Dr. Philip Hublitz.

Candidates’ Requirements:

- An abstract of their work;
- A curriculum vitae, including a complete list of publications;
- A justification letter;
- A letter of support from their mentor;
- A letter of acceptance from the conference organizers.

General requirements are that all candidates should be:
– PhD students or postdoctoral fellows; and

– They must present their own, original work as an oral presentation (or poster) at the conference for which the travel award application is being made.

Please send your applications to [email protected] by 28 February 2020. The winners will be announced by the end of March 2020.

Prof. Dr. Fernando Albericio
Editor-in-Chief, Methods and Protocols
1. School of Chemistry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4001, South Africa
2. Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Barcelona, 08028-Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Philip Hublitz
Associate Editor, Methods and Protocols
Head of Genome Engineering Facility, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, OX3 9DS, UK

Dear Colleagues,

As Editor-in-Chief of Methods and Protocols, I am pleased to announce the winner of the 2019 MPs Travel Award. The award was granted to Dr. Guerrino Macori, postdoctoral fellow of the Teagasc Food Research Centre. He will receive 800 Swiss Francs for travel expenses to attend the Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2019 in ICC Belfast, UK.

Dr. Guerrino Macori’s current research is focused on analysis of genomic data for the assembly of new bacterial genomes and phylogenetic studies for the tracing of food-borne outbreaks. He has an active interest in computational analysis and in genomic data science. He is currently taking algorithms development and machine learning courses in order to widen his knowledge in these fields and possibly use them in the development of novel approaches and applications in molecular microbiology.

MPs is proud to support this young researcher working in the field of microbial ecology and wish him further success in his career. We are grateful to all who submitted applications; thank you for letting us get to know you and your work. We hope you will continue supporting MPs in the future.

I personally would like to congratulate the winner and thank the members of the Selection Committee for their excellent work in choosing the winner from such a large number of excellent candidates.

Prof. Dr. Fernando Albericio
Editor-in-Chief of MPs