I delivered my thesis to my institution on a date within the period of eligibility for this year's CMS Thesis Award call, but my thesis defense is scheduled at a later date, after October 31st. May I still be nominated for this year's award? No, the thesis must have been defended successfully on or before this year's Oct. 31st, prior to the opening of the current call. Theses defended after Oct. 31st are eligible for next year's call.
Does the thesis need to be written in English? Theses written in a language other than English must be accompanied by an accurate translation in English of the original thesis content in its entirety so that the Committee can fairly and accurately evaluate the thesis work. The original thesis and its English translation should be uploaded to iCMS and CDS and the CDS link provided with the nomination material.
Can I nominate my own thesis? No, a thesis should be nominated by the thesis supervisor or by a CMS colleague who has followed closely the thesis work. However, thesis authors may be proactive in soliciting their thesis nomination by a suitable colleague, if they consider their thesis competitive for the award. As a term of comparison, please see awarded theses from previous calls on the Thesis Award page.
Where can I get advice, if I think that my thesis is competitive for the award but I have difficulties in identifying a nominator? First of all discuss with your supervisor and with other senior colleagues who have followed closely your thesis work. One of them may agree to submit a nomination of your thesis. If you still have difficulties in identifying a nominator (e.g., if your supervisor is not available during the opening period of the nomination call to submit your nomination), the Thesis Award committee may offer some advice in identifying a suitable nominator. Please contact the committee chair as early as possible after the opening of the nomination call, to leave enough time to identify a nominator and possibly submit your thesis nomination.
Can I provide information to the Thesis Award committee after the call for nominations is closed? No. All the information that you want to be considered by the committee for the evaluation of a nominated thesis should be provided at the time of the nomination. The committee establishes its evaluation strictly on the basis of the thesis manuscript (having the largest weight in the evaluation) together with information about CMS-related work provided in the nominee’s CV and in the nomination letter. The committee members strive to evaluate all nominated theses fairly and accurately, based on the information provided with the nomination. In exceptional cases, which need to be unanimously agreed upon by the committee members, the committee may decide that more information is needed about a specific nomination. In such a case, the committee chair may ask an external party to provide specific information. Incidentally, it is professional malpractice to approach individual committee members during the evaluation process, with the purpose of providing or requesting information about a specific nomination.
I/my nominee could not obtain a CDS link in time before the closing of the current call. Can my/their thesis be nominated nevertheless? Please note that it is a requirement that the nominated thesis be uploaded to both the iCMS database, for CMS record, and to the CDS repository. The CDS link, being a public link, demonstrates that the thesis is endorsed for public release by the CMS institute associated with the thesis work. Indeed, in general the CMS institute leader will have approved the uploading of the thesis publicly to CDS. The CDS link may be obtained in about two weeks. Please make sure to upload the thesis to CDS at least two weeks in advance of the call closure. If you still do not have the CDS link before the call closure, please temporarily provide the iCMS link and note in the comment field of the submission form that you have uploaded the thesis to CDS and will get the link within a week or so. It is the nominee's responsibility to provide the CDS link to the committee (mail to committee chair), as soon as available, after the closure of the call. There is one exceptional reason why the CDS link cannot be provided at the time of the nomination: this is when the thesis contains physics results that have not been formally approved yet for public release (if the physics results are undergoing approval for a PAS or a publication), thus the thesis cannot be released publicly on CDS yet. In this case, it is acceptable to provide the iCMS link, instead of the CDS one, but please note in the comment field of the submission form the reason for the missing CDS link and the estimated time when you will be able to provide it (which should depend on the approval status of the analysis concerned with the thesis).
Why do you require a CDS link? Wouldn't it be enough to provide a publicly accessible link associated with a DOI for the thesis through the university library website? Depending on the institute or university delivering the degree, a thesis may or may not receive an associated public link provided by the university library. A CDS link is a permanent, publicly accessible link, which can be required for any CERN-related thesis, irrespective of the institute or university issuing the degree. We ask that the nominated thesis be uploaded to both iCMS database, for CMS record, and to the CDS repository. The latter, from the committee's side, represents a quality filter, since, in general, it is the responsibility of the CMS institute leader to decide whether to upload a thesis publicly to CDS. The upload of the thesis to CDS represent a de facto endorsement by the CMS institute associated with the thesis work.
I want to nominate a thesis related to a physics analysis. Should the thesis be a CMS "endorsed thesis"? We do not require formal CMS thesis endorsement at the nomination time, because this may disadvantage a number of potential nominees (in particular, those who defended the thesis late in the eligibility year). We do require the thesis to be uploaded to CDS, which is a public repository. In most cases, for physics theses, the results are published or, if in preliminary CMS-approved form (as a Physics Analysis Summary, PAS), presented at conferences, so they are "public" already. In these cases, there is no problem in making the thesis content public through CDS. Instead, if the thesis contains unpublished and not yet approved results, because the analysis approval is ongoing, it is acceptable to provide an iCMS link, instead of the CDS one, but please note in the comment field of the submission form the reason for the missing CDS link and the estimated time when you will be able to provide it. Then, if the thesis is selected for the award in June, and thus recommended for publication in Springer Theses, in agreement with PC and PubComm, the committee requires that the publishable thesis content be approved by PC and PubComm before publication, as it is the case for other individual publications with CMS unpublished content.
