Pilkington Award
The SGT – Alastair Pilkington Award is designed to encourage and recognise excellent work in glass research achieved by someone who has come into the field of glass studies [relatively recently].
Not restricted to hard science or engineering, this award spans all dimensions of glass studies, creativity and research; the arts as well as the science, conservation and museum studies as well as engineering, history and design as well as molecular dynamics.
Did you know it was his personal qualities which gained Alastair Pilkington a place in the famous glass manufacturing company, not his surname - he was not related to the glassmaking family.
Inspired by Sir Alastair, this award will be an encouragement for able researchers to make their mark in the diverse fields of glass studies, and also provide a fitting memorial to an extraordinarily gifted man who changed the way we all think of windows. The Award is funded by the Society of Glass Technology and the Mushroom Trust, a fund set up by Sir Alastair’s family. [Workers on the nascent float furnaces told their families they were looking at ways to use the waste heat from the sheet glass furnaces, mushroom growing was one option!]
The first award was presented at the last ESG, in Maastricht, to Dr John Mauro of Corning.
The second winner of the award is Dr Emma Barney of the University of Nottingham, via Warwick University, and post-doctorate at the ISIS neutron diffraction laboratory.
Her submission for the Pilkington award illustrates her investigations of the short range structure of glasses, or related crystal phases to gain an insight into the network structure and the relationship between modifier and glass former environments. Tellurite and heavy metal germanate glasses are industrially relevant optical glasses that are being actively researched for use in near and mid infrared fibres. With a deeper understanding of why changes in glass structure occur with composition, and how these changes affect the physical properties of the glasses, it would be possible to design and predict glass compositions that are ideally suited for particular applications.
The Prize consists of a commemorative piece of glass, not the huge sculpture! Support in attending the ESG conference and 1500 Euros.
The third award will be presented at the ESG in Sheffield in 2016, initial enquiries are welcome.
Rules and Criteria for the Award
In accordance with the Rules of the Society of Glass Technology, the process of judging the submissions and making a decision about which candidate deserves to be the recipient of the Award shall be under the aegis of the Society’s Board of Fellows. The Board may form a sub-committee to consider the entries in detail and make recommendations, to assist the Board in making this Award. The judgement of the Board of Fellows in making this award is final and non-negotiable. If in any given year the Board judges that none of the entries is of sufficiently high standard to merit the Award, then no award will be made that year.
The Rules and Criteria for this Award are:
1. Applications may be from any glass field where publication in refereed journals is the norm, including glass science, technology, history, archæometry, conservation, design, museology,&c.
2. There is no absolute age limit, but under normal circumstances it is expected that applicants are under 40 years of age (this allows those who come into the glass field later in life to compete). Candidates must demonstrate that they have been employed in the glass field (industry, laboratory, research institute, university, &c.) for no longer than 7 years following training.
3. Each applicant must provide the names, addresses and contact details (telephone numbers and e-mail address) of three referees.
4. Each applicant is restricted to submitting a MAXIMUM of THREE papers, on which the applicant should normally be listed as the SOLE or FIRST-NAMED AUTHOR, or be DEMONSTRABLY THE PRIMARY AUTHOR; that is to say the author should submit his or her three best papers in terms of quality and of substantial personal contribution.
5. The papers MUST be in English and be sufficiently well expressed to be readily understandable.
6. Each paper MUST have been refereed before publication
7. Each paper shall be submitted electronically as a file in pdf format corresponding to the final printed version in the journal concerned.
8. Each paper MUST be accompanied by a statement clearly defining the applicant’s contribution. (This is especially important if the applicant is not the first author.) The applicant must understand that the SGT reserves the right to contact the other authors of a paper to verify such statements.
9. The papers submitted MUST all have been published within a period not exceeding 5 years.
10. Any given applicant shall be limited to a maximum of 3 attempts as a candidate for this award.
11. In making a submission for this award, each candidate accepts these rules and agrees to be bound by them.
Contacts:
Professor Adrian Wright: <A.C.Wright@reading.ac.uk>
Dr David Martlew: <David.Martlew@gmail.com>
Mr Brian McMillan: <brian.w.mcmillan@gmail.com>
Issued by the Society of Glass Technology, 9 Churchill Way, Chapeltown, Sheffield S35 2PY
phone 0114 2634455
