The European Robotics Research Network (EURON) is organising its 10th George Giralt PhD Award in Robotics in Europe. The Award will be presented during the annual EURON meeting to be held in Spring 2011, together with the eighth EURON/EUnited Technology Transfer Award.

The deadline for submission is 31st December, 2010.

The candidates will be researchers in the field of robotics having obtained their PhD degree in any institution member of EURON during 2009 or 2010, in any topic within robotics. Any European language is allowed, but English theses will allow a better evaluation by the international PhD Award Jury.

The candidates must have obtained a very high score in the university or institution where the thesis was submitted, provided there are different grades. Otherwise, we leave it to the thesis advisor's discretion to do the quality screening.

The evaluation criteria are the scientific and technological quality of the thesis, in combination with posterior results of any activity associated with the thesis work, such as: publications, products, research projects, etc.

The candidates must send their applications to the EURON PhD Award Committee, before the end of December 2010, via an email to the EURON Board (board AT lists.euron.org).

The application shall include a copy of the PhD Thesis in PDF format, and the information about when the PhD was defended.

The EURON Board will assign a Jury, consisting of at least five members, to evaluate the candidatures. In the case of very specialised works the jury can ask for the assistance of specialists in the field. Also, some assistance will be recommended, in the case that a great number of proposals will be submitted. The Jury will discuss the proposals based on the collected information: the documentation presented, reviews, and scientific and technical production. After their deliberation they will make the final decision including a motivation.

There will be a single Award, although the Jury has, occasionally, already decided to add a second one in the past. The concession of this award is compatible with any other award or special mention obtained by the candidates at their respective universities. EURON has an agreement with the Springer Tracts on Advanced Robotics to publish the winning thesis (typically after an editorial and stylistic review procedure, and only if the thesis is available in English at the time of submission to the STAR editors).

The Award will be presented at the 2011 EURON Annual Meeting, where the finalists are invited to give a final presentation before the Jury.

For the Georges Giralt PhD Committee,
Herman Bruyninckx, EURON Coordinator and PhD Jury President.

We hope that you will get involved in many of EURON's activities and encourage others to do so as well.

Attending meetings is an excellent way of making contacts and friends within the community. The Annual Meetings are the major instrument for this purpose.

A lot of things are happening all the time in the European robotics community: conferences and workshops are being organised, projects are starting, job offers are announced, etc. The EURON mailing list is the place-to-be for all your communications around these topics.