Sixty years ago, most scientific endeavours were isolated projects carried out in single labs, with rare collaborations taking place between trusted colleagues and neighbours.

While many countries had a national biochemical society through which local biochemists could share their findings, developments in technology, communication, and transportation were rapidly creating a world in which national boundaries were too tight for scientific exchange.

The Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) was established to bring together the scientific societies of European countries and provide a platform for scientific exchange through its publications and annual FEBS Congress. Over the years, FEBS has expanded its activities, training early career scientists through Advanced Courses, granting fellowships, encouraging collaborations across borders, and nurturing open access. In 2024, FEBS will mark sixty years of success responding to the needs of a flourishing international scientific community.

FEBS Letters is celebrating the 60^th anniversary of FEBS with a writing competition. We want to hear from scientists about their blueprints for the scientific society of tomorrow. What is the utopian scientific society like 60 years from now? What are the needs of future molecular life scientists? How can they be sustainably met by a scientific society?

Contest guidelines

1. Submissions will be judged on originality, interest, style, and coherence. Contestants are encouraged to interpret the prompt creatively, and we welcome submissions in the form of essays, short stories, poems, comic strips, and more!
   
   
2. Prose submissions should fall between 500 and 1500 words.
   
   
3. FEBS Letters will read submissions on a rolling basis until 30 September 2024. Submissions should be sent to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Writing Contest Submission’.
   
   
4. Submissions will be judged by the FEBS Letters Editorial Office and select FEBS staff. We will announce the winner of the contest on 31 October 2024.
   
   
5. The author of the winning submission will receive a prize of 500 Euros and the winning submission will be published in the Scientists’ Forum of FEBS Letters in December 2024.
   
   
6. FEBS Letters encourages submissions from researchers at all stages of their careers, and from researchers belonging to communities historically underrepresented in bioscience.
   
   
7. We are unable to consider submissions from researchers who have personal relationships with a member of the FEBS Letters Editorial Office. We are also unable to consider submissions written in whole or in part with generative AI.
   
   
8. FEBS Letters reserves the right not to award a prize, or to award second and third prizes, depending on the quality and quantity of submissions, at the judges’ discretion.