ECTS Best Article Award

The aim of the ECTS Best Article 2025-2026 Award, is to recognise excellence in bone disease research, clinical, basic and translated into clinical relevance. Articles are evaluated for their scientific merit as well as their originality and significance of contribution to the field.

The 2026 Call for Applications will open in September.

Applications deadline: 12 November 2025

Please read carefully the below guidelines before submitting an application.

General Conditions

• The Award covers three calls: one clinical, one basic and one translational. The candidate must state to which of the three areas wants to apply.
• If there are no satisfactory candidates from one call, ECTS will reserve the rights to transfer the award to the other calls.
• The manuscript must have been published (or accepted for publication) during the period of June 2024-October 2025.
• Successful applicants are requested to attend ECTS Congress during which awardees are announced. Each winner will have ten minutes presentation to show results, implications and future directions.
• ECTS will cover expenses of travel (up to 500 Euro for travel and up to 300€ for two hotel nights ) and congress registration.
• IMPORTANT: Only the applicant will be awarded. A certificate listing all the authors of the manuscript will be given to the winner. 

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be within 5 years of completion of Medical School or PhD (excluding maternity/paternity leaves) and must not hold permanent faculty positions. In case he/she obtained both MD and PhD, the 5 years period is calculated on the last obtained
• The contribution of the applicant to the published article must be clearly visible with first author position (reviews, editorials, comments or letters are not eligible papers for application)
• The applicant should be ECTS Member at least one year before submitting application
• Recipients of previous ECTS Fellowships, Research Grants or Awards are not eligible to apply
• Applications from previous winning applicants or supervisors for awarding the same article will not be considered
• Unsuccessful candidates from previous ECTS Fellowships or Grant Programs are encouraged to apply

Review Process & Notifications

• All applications are reviewed by an independent panel of reviewers. The final decision is based on the marks and comments from the reviewers and any conflicts of interest are identified and dealt with appropriately.
• Applicants will be informed regularly of the status of review and final notifications are planned by the end of March 2025.