The following are the official rules of the 2012 PhD Challenge. Any entry that fails to meet any of the following guidelines will be disqualified. All final decisions about eligibility are left up to the judging committee. We refer to the “challenge name” as the phrase defined in the Call for Participation that must appear in the paper as the title of a new discovery. We refer to a “discovery” as any new contribution to the total knowledge of humankind, including (but not limited to) a new species classification, a new celestial body or phenomenon, a new engineering process, a new theorem, a new scientific idea/concept, or a new algorithm.

Paper Eligibility

In order to qualify for consideration in the PhD Challenge, the paper submitted as your final entry to the contest must satisfy the following criteria:

• The main content of paper must be written in English.
• The challenge name must be easily viewable by the human eye (i.e., no white text on a white background).
• The challenge name must be in the same font size as other text in the paper.
• The challenge name may not be abbreviated.
• No additional letters, spacing, or punctuation may be added or removed from the challenge name.
• Either the English or Latin version of the challenge name may be used, but the selected name must be complete; that is, you may not swap words from the different versions and use an amalgamation of the two.
• The name of the type discovery does not need to be included with the challenge name. For example, both of the phrases “…the Cleveland Streamer process.” and “…the process known as the Cleveland Steamer.” are acceptable submissions.
• The name of the discovery must always be referred to by the challenge name in the paper. That is, you may not only refer to it by the challenge name in figure captions.

Conference/Journal Eligibility

All contest entries must appear in an academic conference proceedings or journal that meets the following criteria. The right to make the final decision about the eligibility of all conferences/journals is reserved to the discretion of the judging committee.

• The conference proceedings or journal must be in English.
• The conference must be reputable and legitimate peer-reviewed academic publication (e.g., no pay-to-play submissions) and part of an established organization (e.g., The New England Journal of Medicine, IEEE, Nature).

Student Eligibility

All applicants to the PhD Challenge must meet the following criteria. Note that exceptions will be made for distinguished undergraduate entries from those who plan on attending graduate school.

• All applicants must be a graduate students at the time the paper was submitted for review at the conference/journal. Any postgraduate graduate program is acceptable, including (but not limited to) MS, MFA, PhD, JD, MD, MEd, DMA, etc.
• All applicants must be from an accredited university or institution of higher learning.

Submission Requirements

• All submission entries must include the URL for the official download version of the paper containing the challenge name.
• All submission entries must include instructions for where to locate the challenge name in their paper.
• All applicants must consent to having their names and publication information posted on the PhD Challenge website. Note, however, that only the winning submission will be listed.