Rules for the Politzer Prize

1) The organizer of the regular meeting of the Politzer Society shall include following announcements of the Politzer Prize in all congress announcements:

“Politzer Society will award 2 prizes of 1.000 Euros each to the best clinical and the best basic science paper, presented at the meeting by candidates not exceeding 40 years of age. A special abstract of 600 words, including the purpose, material, methods, results and conclusion should be send to the President of the Politer Society by e-mail, no later than 3 months before start of the meeting. At the same time a regular abstract has to be send to the congress organization".

2) The judges are the Politzer Prize Committee, composed by the President (chairman) Past-President, Prof. Paul Van de Heyning from Antwerp and Prof Rudolf Häusler from Bern.

The President shall send the blinded abstracts to the three other judges, asking them to propose (and rank by 1,2,3) the three best clinical and three best basic science papers, to be returned no later than 2 months before the meeting. In the following month the judges will communicate and select the six papers to be presented. The President shall, no later than 1 month before the meeting, inform the 6 selected speakers about the day and time of their presentations and ask for some documentation about the age.

The judges can select 4 clinical papers and 2 basic science papers (and vice versa). If no good clinical papers are presented, the judges can award two good basic science papers and vice versa.

3) The organizer shall reserve a 90 minutes plenary session on the second day of the congress and announce it on the preliminary and the final program as "Politzer Prize Session".

The session is chaired by the President and the Past- president of the Politzer Society. The speaking time is 10 minutes, followed by 5minutes discussion of each paper. In this way we may hope to make this session as an important scientific contribution to the meeting.

After the session the 4 judges will find the two winners and the prices will be given at the congress banquet.

4) If there is the possibility of a conflict of interests among the judges, the President will appoint replacements from other members of the board.

5) The organizers of the next Politzer Society Meetings should promise to follow the Rules of Politzer Prize.    

6) The 2 judges will be replaced by the Executive Committee after 8 years of service. Inclusion of the Past- president among the judges will maintain the continuity and help the new president.

7) The president and the past president shall elaborate a certificate.