Student Paper Competition
AP-RASC 2025 Student Paper Competition
August 17 - 22, 2025 Sydney Australia
Chair: Sembiam Rengarajan, California State University, Northridge, CA, USA
Student Paper Prize winners will be awarded certificates, and checks in the amounts of $1000, $750, $500 and $250, respectively, for 1st place through 4th place
Eligibility
- The first author and presenter must be a full-time university student.
- The topic of the paper must be related to the field of one of the ten URSI Commissions.
- Each student is allowed to submit one paper only for the Student Paper Competition.
- Applicants to the previous URSI Student Paper Competitions will not be eligible to participate with the same paper.
- A letter from the student’s advisor on university letterhead must be appended to the application. The letter must state that the author is enrolled as a full-time university student in a degree program. If the Full Paper is coauthored, the letter must state that all coauthors played only an advisory role. No other students are permitted as coauthors.
Material to be submitted & publication
- By February 20, 2025, the following material needs to be submitted on the same topic and work:
- a Summary Paper or Extended Abstract to the appropriate session, through the symposium paper submission website.
- a full paper, prepared using the available template for Radio Science Letters, must be between 3 and 5 pages in the final published format.
- Summary Paper or Extended Abstract
- will be used for determining the acceptance for presentation at the symposium.
- if accepted, the extended abstract/summary paper will be included in the symposium proceedings and, if so desired the 2-4 pages Summary paper can also be submitted to IEEE Xplore.
- however, in case of acceptance of the paper for publication in Radio Science Letters, the extended abstract/summary paper will be replaced by a link to the full paper in Radio Science Letters to avoid duplicate publication.
- Full Paper:
- will be used for selecting the finalists of the Student Paper Competition.
- a full paper, prepared using the available template for Radio Science Letters, must be between 3 and 5 pages in the final published format.
- If the full paper is accepted for publication in Radio Science Letters, it will be published, regardless of whether it is selected as a finalist or not.
- The full paper will NOT appear in the symposium proceedings nor will the full paper be submitted to IEEE Xplore, only a link to this full paper will be provided.
- For the publication of the full paper, being submitted to take part in the Radio Science Letters, page charges will be waived.
- Page charges for publication in Radio Science Letters will only be waived for papers which are presented at AP-RASC 2025. Page charges will NOT be waived for withdrawn papers, no shows, or papers not presented.
- The submitted full paper will undergo the standard review process for letters submitted to Radio Science Letters.
Submission process
- The Summary Paper or Extended Abstract and Advisory Letter should be submitted through the AP-RASC 2025 online paper submission system, to the appropriate session and with the appropriate box (indicating the Student Paper Competition) being checked during the paper submission.
- The Full Paper, must be prepared as submission to the Radio Science Letters and submitted through the Radio Science Letters submission website. Also here, it must be indicated that the submission is for the AP-RASC 2025 Student Paper Competition.
- A paper that is submitted to a journal before submission to the student competition is ineligible.
- Submissions must use the following file naming convention, where “Lastnameauthor” text is replaced by the student’s surname: SPCFullLastnameauthor.pdf, SPCSummaryLastnameauthor or SPCAbstractLastnameauthor.pdf and SPCLetteradvisorLastnameauthor.pdf
Selection process & prizes
- Ten finalists will be chosen based upon quality, originality and scientific merit, based on the submitted full paper.
- The finalists will present their papers in a special Student Paper Competition session at AP-RASC 2025, in addition to presenting their paper in the session in which the extended abstract or the summary on the same topic was accepted. The student paper presentations will be judged by a panel consisting of the ten URSI Commission Chairs or their authorized representatives.
- All finalists in the Student Paper Competition must present their paper in person.
- The prizes will be awarded to top 4 presenters based on the clarity of the presentation, adherence to time, accessibility to the broad audience of the ten URSI Commissions, and the ability to answer questions on the work. The remaining six will be awarded “Honorable Mention” certificates.
- All finalists attending the AP-RASC in person will be offered a free ticket to the gala dinner. Those who do not show up at the awards ceremony will forfeit their prize.
- Prizes will be awarded by check in USD currency.