The 2025 HDBuzz Prize for Young Science Writers Is Open!
Announcing the 2025 HDBuzz Prize for Young Science Writers – sponsored by the Hereditary Disease Foundation!
We’re pleased to announce the 2025 HDBuzz Prize! This year, the HDBuzz Prize is brought to you by the Hereditary Disease Foundation (HDF), who are sponsoring this year’s competition. Training the next generation of passionate Huntington’s disease (HD) researchers is directly in line with the HDF’s mission. The HDF understands the importance of having future key opinion leaders that can communicate their work to the global HD community in easy-to-understand language. They aim to ensure that we continue to have an abundant pipeline of talented researchers focused on HD – something we can all agree is critical for advancing HD research!
What Is The HDBuzz Prize?
The HDBuzz prize is an opportunity for early-career HD researchers to get involved in communicating HD science to the global community, see their work published and shared through our online channels, and win US $200 – woohoo for you!
The prize was designed to diversify the voices that bring you content on HDBuzz. Not every researcher interprets data the same, so having multiple viewpoints represented here helps ensure that our readers are getting HD news content that spans the varied perspectives of the HD field.
Calling All HD Scientists
We’re looking for young scientists with a gift for communicating research news clearly and imaginatively.
The HDBuzz prize is open to anyone with an active involvement in any aspect of Huntington’s disease research. We’re particularly keen on the fresh take that PhD students and postdocs provide and are actively seeking researchers with clinical experience. So if that’s you, hit us up!
Full articles will include a piece of around 1,000 words, suitable for publication by HDBuzz, about a recent HD research paper that we haven’t covered yet.
In addition to the article, full article submissions will contain:
- a catchy title
- a front-page summary of no more than 100 words
- a social media post of no more than 250 characters, including spaces
- two in-text image suggestions and a cover photo suggestion
- at least one reference to a peer-reviewed article forming the subject of the piece
The HDBuzz prize is an opportunity for early-career HD researchers to get involved in communicating HD science to the global community, see their work published and shared through our online channels, and win US $200 – woohoo for you!
How To Apply
Entrants should submit a short pitch, of ~200 words detailing what they wanted to write about and why they thought it was important for HD families to know about, all in HDBuzz-style language. We will review all of the article pitches to screen ideas and writing styles before inviting full articles to be written. Our goal is to save everyone time! We want HD researchers to be able to spend as much time working on their science.
The closing date for entries for the article pitches is Tuesday 1st July at 5pm Eastern Standard Time.
All entries must be written in English. We regret that entries in other languages will not be considered.
Prizes!
The pitch winners will be announced throughout the Fall (or autumn, if you’re feeling fancy – or just British to be honest) of 2025.
Winning articles will be published on HDBuzz, translated into various languages, and syndicated to dozens of HD community sites worldwide.
Winners will also receive US $200!
Public engagement is important for every scientist’s training, so apart from the cash, this would enhance the CV of any eager young HD researcher.
Tips For Successful Writing
- Take a look at several HDBuzz articles before you start, to get a good feel for our tone and style.
- If in doubt, simplify.
- Assume that your reader is interested in HD and willing to learn, but has no formal scientific training.
- Explain anything beyond high-school science, in bite-sized steps. Then go back and explain the high-school science.
- Apply metaphor, analogy, humor, and silliness generously.
- Remember to explore the limitations of what you’re writing about and try to explain what needs to happen next for it to bring HD treatments closer.
- Avoid pictures that contain text for full article submissions, as this causes translation problems.
- Avoid studies we’ve already covered, publications with which you’re affiliated, and any pre-print articles.
The Fine Print
The editors’ decision is final and correspondence will not be entered into. By submitting an entry, you are agreeing to allow editing of your article for style and content, and its publication via HDBuzz.net and release under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License including translation and unlimited syndication. Winners agree to be named at HDBuzz.net. All entries will be scrutinized for plagiarism and disqualified if it is found.
Public engagement is important for every scientist’s training, so apart from the cash, this would enhance the CV of any eager young HD researcher.
Help Us Spread The Word!
Whether you’re a Principal Investigator (that’s ‘head honcho’ in laboratory-speak) or an HD family member, chances are you know a young scientist with a neat turn of phrase and a gift for communication.
If so, please put them in touch with us or send them to this article, so they can think about entering the prize.
So, fellow science nerds – get in touch and get cracking!
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