Award open for nominations

The Vincent Weir Scientific Award for bat research is now open and taking nominations. The closing date is 29^th June 2015.

The Award aims to reward and encourage research on the conservation biology of bats by new researchers and to recognise the late Hon. Vincent Weir's major contributions to bat conservation over many years. It is awarded annually to a student at a UK-based institution who has made a significant contribution to conservation research of bats and has published paper(s) from their thesis either before submission or within two years of submission.

Anna Berthinussen receiving her award last year

The first prize was presented at the National Bat Conference in 2010 to Emma Stone in recognition of her innovative and influential research on the impact of street lighting on lesser horseshoe bats. Since then an Award has been presented every year celebrating the research of many early career researchers, including a joint award in 2012. The commended research has included the ecology of the barbastelle bat, using DNA sequencing to understand grey long eared bat ecology, developing state-of-the-art acoustic identification tools and understanding the effectiveness of commonly used techniques to mitigate the effects of roads on bats. A list of the previous award winners and their research can be found here: http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/previous_vincent_weir_scientific_award_winners.html

BCT's Director of Science and other BCT Science Trustees and Honorary Science and Conservation Advisors will make up the assessment panel and decisions will be made by late July. The winner will be invited to attend the National Bat Conference at Warwick University and present a talk on their research and collect the award.

To nominate a candidate for consideration for the Vincent Weir Scientific Award please send a brief justification of your nomination (300 words) and supply pdfs of the publications for which they are nominated to Janet Baumkotter (JBaumkotter@bats.org.uk). The deadline for nominations is 5pm, Monday 29^th June.

Extra notes:

• A person can only be presented with the award once.
• The award will not be given in a given year if the submissions are deemed to not make a sufficiently significant contribution to the conservation biology of bats.
• If one of the assessment panel's students is under consideration they will not participate in the discussion of the candidate and input from a co-opted panel member will be included.