Global Forum for Health Research Essay competition 2008

Young voices in research for health

The Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet are holding their third joint essay competition for the under-30s on the theme:

Climate change and health: research challenges for the health of vulnerable populations

Rules and guidelines

* Authors must have been born on or after 1 January 1978.
* Each author may submit one essay only.
* Essays may be submitted in English or French and should be 1500 words maximum.
* Essays must be based on the author’s own ideas and not be derived from another source.
* Essays must not have been previously published.
* Entries are individual (i.e., the work of a single author).
* They should include original, even provocative ideas and not be technical or academic texts: tables, charts and figures are probably not necessary; references should be limited.
* Authors are free to be idealistic, passionate, to take established practices to task, albeit in a constructive fashion.
* Within the context of research for health, the theme allows authors to include any aspect that interests them particularly – for example, extreme weather, natural disasters, fuels and energy, transport, water management, vectors, food production, demographics, urban planning, security.


Deadlines

* The deadline for receipt of entries is 30 April 2008.
* A shortlist will be announced by the end of June. Shortlisted authors will be asked to provide a high quality photograph and to confirm original authorship and date of birth.
* The winners will be notified by the beginning of August 2008. The judges’ decision will be final.

Prizes

* A selection of shortlisted essays will be published in an anthology as well as on the Global Forum and Lancet websites.
* Winners will be invited to take part (with all expenses paid) in the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health, which will take place in Bamako, Mali, from 17 to 19 November 2008.

Staff members of the Global Forum or of the Lancet or their immediate families are ineligible to enter the competition, as are authors of shortlisted essays published in 2006 and 2007.

For any questions, please contact susan.jupp@globalforumhealth.org or f.mclellan@elsevier.com