Dear IBS Member
Frontiers of Biogeography and the IBS Early Career Committee are pleased to invite submissions for Doctoral Dissertation/Thesis synopses from early career biogeographers (up to 2 years after graduation from a PhD program). All submitted synopses will be considered for publication in Frontiers of Biogeography, those selected then going through the journal’s usual peer-review process. The target issue for publication is v5.3, September 2013. Submission deadline is July 30th, 2013. Submitted synopses will compete for the Best Dissertation/Thesis Summary Award presented at the 2014 IBS Early Career Conference in Canberra, Australia. The Award has been established in order to recognize and publicize outstanding doctoral work in the field of biogeography. The recipient of the Award will have an opportunity to give a talk at the Early Career Conference and will be presented with a certificate, a commemorative plate, and 500USD to help with the travel expenses to the Conference. Guidelines for dissertation synopses ‘Long synopses’ of recently completed PhD dissertations/theses should include a brief summary of the state of the field as well as the contributions provided by the dissertation/thesis. Synopses should clearly articulate how the chapters (either published or unpublished) fit together and warrant attention as a single body of work. The length of the submission should not exceed 2,500 words, with approximately 2-3 paragraphs of introduction, 2-3 paragraphs of methods, 1-2 of results and 1-2 paragraphs of discussion. The dissertation synopsis should be submitted within 2 years of graduation from the PhD granting institution and should clearly list chapters already published (including citation) and those yet to be published at the time of submission. An embargo for the publication of the dissertation synopsis may be granted upon request if one or several chapters have not yet been accepted for publication by the time of the final acceptance of the manuscript. All synopses will be peer reviewed based on the following criteria: - Novelty / originality work (30%)
- Clarity / specificity of the research questions and hypotheses (10%)
- Adequate Theoretical framework according to the objectives (10%)
- Originality of the data (10%)
- Methodological tools (10%)
- Scope and limitations of the research (10%)
- Relevance of the results to the research question (10%)
- Relevance / impact in the field of biogeography (10%)
Frontiers of Biogeography will waive fees for any authors responding to this call and publishing in the September issue (Frontiers' fee policy reduced-rates for IBS members and the fee-waiver policy at the bottom of the Information for Authors page). For more information on manuscript length and format please visit http://www.escholarship.org/uc/search?entity=fb;view=authorinformation#length Information for Authors can be found at http://www.escholarship.org/uc/search?entity=fb;view=authorinformation For more information on Frontiers of Biogeography please visit http://www.escholarship.org/uc/fb Frontiers of Biogeography is indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals <http://www.doaj.org/openurl?genre=journal&issn=19486596>, which reflects consistency in publishing articles of substance and commitment to Open Access standards. For more information about the Best Dissertation/Thesis Synopsis Award contact Leticia Ochoa-Ochoa at thi...@yahoo.com or any other member of the IBS Early Career Committee: Sandra Nogue (sandr...@gmail.com), Carolina Tovar (carolin...@zoo.ox.ac.uk), Marta Jarzyna (jarz...@msu.edu), or Andres Lira Noriega (aliran...@yahoo.com). | 
