European Federation of Chemical Engineering

This document describes how this award series will operate and the rules & procedures governing nomination and selection of candidates.

The award will comprise

A certificate
A cash prize of 1,500 EUR
A travel grant (not exceeding 500 Euros) to attend the ESCAPE event where the award will be presented

The award will be presented

At an ESCAPE-event during an even-numbered year (ie. 2006, 2008, etc), in plenary session
The EFCE Excellence Award in Recognition of an Outstanding PhD Thesis on CAPE 2024 will be presented at ESCAPE34-PSE24 which will be held in Florence, Italy, on 2-6 June 2024.
PhD theses defended after 1 January 2021 may be nominated for evaluation (3 calendar years before the submission deadline). The closing date for nominations is

Any PhD supervisor at a PhD-awarding institution in an EFCE member country may make one nomination (any subsequent nominations from the same supervisor will be rejected ) on behalf of a PhD student.
The nominated PhD Thesis must address a topic relevant to the field of CAPE - computer aided process engineering, or process systems engineering (PSE) the general scope of which is defined on the EFCE CAPE WP website (https://www.wp-cape.eu/).
The nominated thesis must have been defended after 1 January 2021.

Supporting documentation: nominations should be submitted via the online submission tool and must contain the following information:

Name, address and CV of nominee (PhD-student)
Name and address of nominator/supervisor
PhD Thesis title
Date work commenced and date PhD awarded and Thesis published (note that the Thesis must have been completed and published and the PhD degree examined and awarded)
Three letters of recommendation (no more than two pages each), from the supervisor/nominator and two independent referees from different institutions (one of whom could be the national delegate to the EFCE CAPE WP), outlining the key contribution to CAPE research and/or practice and stating clearly why the Thesis is considered to be truly outstanding and thus deserving the Excellence Award.
An extended abstract in English (maximum 10 pages) containing the following information: summary, problem addressed, state of the art, key innovations, applications/implementations/results, references.
At least one (but no more than two) refereed publications in English (in either a journal or the proceedings of a well-established conference series), with the candidate as first-named and primary author.
Upon request: A copy of the Thesis, as published (this will be returned after the evaluation is completed, on request)

Deadline : nominations must be submitted by the supervisor to reach the PhD Award Committee, without fail, no later than 31 December 2023.
Late nominations will be not be considered.

The winning candidate, if any, will be informed no later than March 31st of the year in which the award will be presented.

The successful candidate will be invited to make a plenary presentation at the ESCAPE event at which the award is presented.
The successful candidate will be invited to prepare a paper for publication (based on the extended abstract) as a "guest paper" in Computers & Chemical Engineering.

EFCE Excellence Award in Recognition of Outstanding PhD Thesis on CAPE