Tuesday 12 April 2011

Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize

The Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2011 in association with the Guardian and The Observer aims to celebrate new voices in science journalism. If you can enthuse people about cutting-edge particle physics or the latest developments in synthetic biology, this is the competition for you.

As long as you're not already a professional writer or journalist you can enter this competition. To encourage more people to discuss and think about science, we want to bring brilliant new writing to the attention of all our readers.

The prizes will be presented at a prestigious ceremony at the Wellcome Trust on 12 October 2011 and the winning articles from each category will be published in the Guardian or The Observer. There will be two prizes, one for professional scientists and another for everyone else. The winners will each receive a £1,000 cash prize.

The top 30 shortlisted entrants will also be invited to attend a science writing workshop at the Guardian offices in October 2011.

Among the judges will be Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, the director of the Wellcome Trust, Mark Walport, comedian Dara O'Briain and the Observer's science editor, Robin McKie.

What are we looking for? The kind of writing that we would want to read ourselves.

Great link with more guidance here at the Guardian.

The entries can be traditional newspaper features or writing suitable for the web that utilises the medium in an innovative and appropriate way. Bear in mind, however, that this prize is primarily about the writing and is not meant as a way of recognising expert programming skills or multimedia.

Deadline: 20 May.

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