EMS Young Scientist Award

The EMS Young Scientist Award (YSA) is given to an individual in recognition of excellent performance in terms of scientific publications or presentations during the early stage of their scientific career. The award is in form of a prize money and – normally – travel expenses to cover the attendance of the EMS Annual Meeting.

Young scientists under 35 years on the first of January of the calendar year in which the award is to be given who have been working or studying, full or part-time, in a European country before or when the paper was published, are eligible for the award. All countries with an EMS Member Society or included in the WMO Region VI are considered as European. For an overview of EMS Member Societies please consult the EMS Member site.

In the evaluation of the nominations, the following criteria are normally applied:

  • Interest of the proposed publication
  • Innovative content of the proposed publication
  • Candidate profile
  • Country.

Call for nominations for the EMS Young Scientist Award 2025 has now expired. The awardee will be announced in May.

EMS Young Scientist Award 2024 to Bianca Mezzina
Bianca Mezzina, EMS Young Scientist Awardee 2024 (photo: private)
Bianca Mezzina, EMS Young Scientist Awardee 2024 (photo: private)

The recipient of the EMS Young Scientist Award 2024 is Bianca Mezzina, Italy, currently working at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. She was nominated with the publication “Contributions of atmospheric forcing and ocean preconditioning in the 2016 Antarctic sea ice extent drop”, Bianca Mezzina et al 2024 Environ. Res.: Climate 3 021002

The EMS Awards Committee selected Bianca Mezzina as the awardee because her research provides significant contributions to the challenging research into understanding of ocean-sea-ice-atmosphere climate dynamics and coupling. She also has a very strong publication record in the early stage of her career.

Terms of reference

approved by the EMS Council at the 27th Session on 9 September 2012, Lódz, Poland

The EMS Young Scientist Award (YSA) is given to individuals in recognition of excellent performance in terms of scientific publications or presentations during the early stage of their scientific career. Nominations are generally confined to early-career European scientist. The publication shall have been published in a reviewed international scientific journal during the three calendar years preceding the year of nomination.

The candidate shall be under 35 years on the first of January of the calendar year in which the award is to be given and must have been working or studying, full or part-time, in a European country before or when the paper was published. All countries with an EMS Member Society or included in the WMO RA VI region are considered as European.

Nominations shall include a concise curriculum vitae of the candidate, a supporting statement by a nominating Member Society or Associate Member explaining the outstanding qualities and achievements of the nominee, and an electronic copy of the proposed paper, and a proposal for a citation of 30 words or less. Each Member Society and Associate Member is entitled to nominate one candidate per year.

Recipients of the Young Scientist Award are considered and approved by the EMS Awards Committee.

The Young Scientist Award shall be presented annually, normally at the EMS Annual Meetings. The award consists of a prize money of 1000 Euro, a trophy and a certificate, and the reimbursement of travel costs (transportation, accommodation and food, all at an economical level agreed with the Executive Secretary) for the awardee’s attendance of the entire EMS Annual Meeting at which the award presentation is made. Awardees shall be invited to make a short presentation to the EMS Annual Meeting on the background to their work.

The EMS Awards Committee is entitled to approve specific procedures for the nomination and selection of candidates, in agreement with these Terms of Reference.

Previous Awardees