The JEET Emerging Scientist Award in Ethnobiology is awarded annually to three colleagues who have made outstanding contributions to the field of Ethnobiology and Ethnosciences and are in the early stages of their career.
First introduced in 2025, this unique prize aims to reward and celebrate exceptional early career achievements in the fields of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. Particularly, the purpose is to recognise scholars who have worked together with local communities and Indigenous Peoples to foster their wellbeing, create inclusion, and mitigate marginalization and stigmatization.
The JEET Emerging Scientist Award in Ethnobiology recognizes exceptional scientific efforts in documenting, culturally analysing, and interpreting local communities' nature knowledge and folk medical practices heritage, especially those of neglected groups. By awarding and encouraging high quality research in this field, the Prize Committee, the JEET and BMC hope that more can be done to revitalize local ecological and medical knowledge systems and turn it into concrete future projects.
Nomination process
Nominations should be sent to Springer Nature by email (click the link to contact). The nomination call is open between May 1st and May 31st 2025. Late nominations will not be accepted. Nominations are usually submitted by colleagues, but self-nominations are also permitted. All nominations will be treated as confidential and according to high standards of data protection.
Nominations should include
- A full CV
- Evidence of eligibility for the early career/emerging scientist criteria described below in the Eligibility section
- A statement clearly explaining the key scientific contributions to the field that have been made by the nominee.
The contribution(s) must be underpinned in studies on local/traditional knowledge systems, broadly covered by the terms Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. In particular, the studies should have presented field data that could generate novel conceptualisations or methodological inputs. A single key scientific contribution is sufficient.
Eligibility
Be “early-career”, which we define as having started publishing and/or doing documented research work in the field of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine not earlier than 1 January 2018.
Nominations of individuals from under-represented groups are particularly encouraged.
Selection criteria for the Prize
Nominations are evaluated by the JEET Emerging Scientist Prize Committee. Members of this Committee include JEET Editorial Board Members, indigenous scholars, and individuals who are outside of the JEET Editorial team. Appointment to this committee will be for 3 years and Committee Members cannot be nominated for the award during their tenure as assessors of the JEET Emerging Scientist Prize.
The Committee is led by three Chairs who will shortlist eligible candidates, coordinate the discussion with the Members, and oversee the selection and voting process, ensuring that it is carried out fairly and transparently.
Prize Committee
Committee Chairs
Renata Soukand, PhD, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
John R. Stepp, PhD, University of Florida, USA
Joan Vallès, PhD, University of Barcelona, Spain
Members
Arshad M. Abbasi, PhD, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Pakistan
Omar Faruque, PhD, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Shuja Khan, PhD, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan
Chunlin Long, PhD, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Minzu University of China, China
Alfred Maroyi, PhD, University of Fort Hare, South Africa
Tania Martínez, PhD, Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, Mexico
Andrea Pieroni, PhD, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy
Dan Saladino, Journalist, BBC Radio, UK
The Committee Members will discuss the nominations, then the voting process is carried out by secret ballot using a ranking method (top 3). The nominee who has more than 5 first place votes wins. If no nominee has more than 5 first place votes, the total score of the ranked vote is calculated and the nominee with the lowest total wins.
Competing interests
Committee Members are asked to declare any competing interest towards all the shortlisted nominees, according to the BMC policies about conflicts of interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors.
Committee Members with a competing interest will still be allowed to take part in the voting process. The reason for this is that the final decision is collegial, and the risk of bias is mitigated by the number of members expressing their vote. However, if one of the nominees is at risk of being overly favoured due to multiple competing interests from the voting members, the Committee Chairs will propose and discuss mitigation measures to ensure that the voting process is carried out fairly.
Committee Members are also allowed to submit a nomination. This is because the senior scientists in the Committee may be able to surface deserving candidates who would otherwise miss the opportunity to access to the prize, due to their disadvantaged background or other circumstances. The Committee Member who submitted the nomination will be able to present the nominee’s profile and explain their merits to the rest of the Committee. However, they will be excluded from the voting process. The nominee in this case would receive one vote less but this is counterbalanced by the fact that that nominee will have had a keen advocate and supporter from within the Committee.
Selection criteria
The Committee will look for evidence of originality (in the approach and/or the methods or in the overall research design and idea), novelty, and potential impact on community life and well-being, i.e. in community-centred bio-conservation strategies, sustainable development, food security, integration of folk medical systems into complementary and alternative medicine, and mainstream public health frameworks. Contributions should have made a difference to our field. The Committee will also look for evidence of contributions that are not only central to ethnosciences but that also envisioned new research projections outside their own scientific fields.
The winners will receive:
- A cash prize of 1,000 EUR for the most outstanding
- 2 cash prizes of 500 EUR for 2 runner-ups
The cash prize is provided by Springer Nature.