“An award will be made annually to “the lead author of the ‘best paper’ published in a Society journal”. The nomination process is outlined below. The award will take the form of a bursary (£1000), including attendance at an international conference (to be agreed with the Society) to present a paper which will be entitled the ‘R.A. Howie Memorial Lecture’. The funds will be paid upon receipt of official confirmation of registration.
The Principal Editors (and members of the Editorial Boards of the Mineralogical Society’s journals) will be invited to propose a maximum of three papers (Mineralogical Magazine) or two papers (Clay Minerals) as possible recipients of the award. This group of up to five papers will be forwarded to the Society Awards Committee which will prepare a ranked list to be submitted to Council for approval. The Society President will contact the winner when s/he has been approved.
Award criteria
The Awards Committee will take into consideration the following points:
1. Novelty
2. Inter-disciplinarity
3. Applicability
4. How the science is advanced by the new work
Normal timeline
One Award will be made each year, and selected from a given volume/year of publication. Deliberation will begin immediately after the publication of the final issue of each volume with the winner being approved at the April meeting of Council each year. The winner will be invited to speak at a meeting in the year immediately following the year of publication of the winning paper.
Upon publication of the final issue of the volume or 28 February (whichever is earlier) in the year following the year/volume under consideration, a list of 5 papers for consideration will be provided by the Editors and circulated by the chair of the Awards Committee amongst the committee members.
By 31st March a ranked list will be prepared by the Awards Committee.
At the April Council meeting: the Society President will invite Council to confirm the top-ranked paper as the winner. Following the Council meeting, the Society President will contact the winner, informing them of the Award.
Promotional Society material is given to the winner to include in their presentation (logo + small amount of text).
Previous Winners
2021: Anouk Borst et al: Structural state of rare earth elements in eudialyte-group minerals
2017: Emma Hart
2016: Jessica Barnes