SRF Stewart Rhind Science Writing Prize

2022 SRF Stewart Rhind Science Writing Prize 

We are delighted to award the 2022 SRF Stewart Rhind Science Writing Prize to

 Ms Sophie Carroll

with her essay entitled

“From your knowledge of reproductive biology, critically evaluate in
detail, one possible cause of mass of infertility that could explain the situation in the
Handmaid’s Tale.”

Who was Stewart Rhind?

The SRF Essay Prize was renamed in honour of Dr Stewart Rhind who was tragically killed in a car accident in March 2013, along with his colleague Dr Julian Dawson. Click here to read more about Dr Rhind and why Professor Mick Rae, a friend and colleague of Dr Rhind, feels that renaming the essay competition was a suitable way for the Society to remember Stewart and his contributions.

The Stewart Rhind Science writing prize is awarded for outstanding scientific writing skills on a topic relevant to reproduction and fertility. Undergraduates or graduate entry medical and veterinary students attending a university in the UK or Ireland, are invited to submit essays on an aspect of reproductive biology. Essays must be written in a style accessible to the educated non-specialist reader and are assessed on scientific content, style and topicality.

Competition Guidelines
  • Submission for 2022 is closed.
  • The essay must be about an aspect of reproductive biology and will be assessed on scientific content, style and topicality.
  • The essay should be written in a style accessible to the educated non-specialist reader (similar to a New Scientist or Scientific American article – see previous winning essays below for examples).  Course essays written in a standard scientific style are unlikely to be successful in the competition.
  • From 2018, there are no longer two parallel competitions for undergraduate and postgraduate entries. All entries will be judged together for one prize.
  • The winner will receive a prize of £250, one year’s free membership of the SRF and will be invited to attend the Fertility meeting to receive their prize. The winning entry will be published on the SRF website.
  • The top three essays will be sent to Reproduction and Fertility which is one of the two official journals of the SRF. The editors of Reproduction and Fertility may select one of them for publication if it meets the editorial standard of the journal.
Eligibility
  • Entrants must be attending a university in the UK or Ireland to be eligible to enter.
  • Essays from graduate entry medical and veterinary students are welcome.
  • Previous winners of the essay prize are not eligible to re-enter the competition.
Submission Guidelines
  • The essay should be no more than 2,000 words in length (excluding references).
  • Entries must include a cover page detailing the following information:
    – Author’s name
    – Author’s address, contact telephone number and email address
    – Degree title, year of study and institution
  • Entries should be written in a style accessible to the educated non-specialist reader.
  • Entrants must ensure that all figures comply with UK copyright regulations.
  • Essays must be submitted via below application form (as a MS Word document saved in the following format InitialLastNameSRPrize22))
  • SRF reserves the right to scan submissions electronically to detect plagiarism.
  • SRF reserves the right to withhold the prize in the event that no entry is deemed to be of a sufficiently high standard.
  • By submitting an essay, the author agrees to transfer copyright to the SRF and to allow the Society to disseminate the essay in electronic and print media.
Essay submission will open shortly.