The Nutrition Society Postgraduate Competition offers current Society members who are postgraduate students registered for a Higher Degree the opportunity to present an original short review paper on their research topic in the Postgraduate Symposium at either the Irish Section Conference or the Nutrition Society Conference. All winners of the competition will have the opportunity to have their review published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society and to host a webinar for the Nutrition Society Academy.
The submission deadline for applicants to UK Postgraduate competition will be 23:59, 25 April 2025.
Submissions Irish Postgraduate Competition is now closed
Please click HERE to apply for the UK Postgraduate Competition
Applicants are advised to refer to the ‘How to Apply’ guidelines for submission which are found within the FAQs. Submissions include an abstract (outlining the content of the proposed review paper), a completed structured proforma and a short biography.
The Irish Postgraduate Competition winners will present at the Irish Section Conference in Dublin (11-13 June 2025)
The UK Postgraduate Competition winners will present at the Nutrition Society Conference in Loughborough (1-2 July 2025).
Please note that applicants are only permitted to submit one application. Applicants cannot submit applications for both competitions in the same year.
The Irish and the UK Postgraduate Competitions are open to current members of the Nutrition Society who are postgraduate students, currently registered for a Higher Degree. The applicant will be required to select at time of application whether they would like to submit to the Irish or the UK Postgraduate Competition and will only ever be eligible to take part in one symposium. Applicants must be studying at an Irish or UK Institution at the time of application and should not have submitted their final thesis. Awarded applicants must be available to deliver a 25-minute presentation at the conference to which their application has been submitted.
Abstract criteria: Abstracts (not more than 500 words, excluding title/authors/references) should clearly indicate what the content of the talk and the review paper will be. Applicants are not required to structure their abstract in the format required for original communications (introduction, methods, results etc). Instead, the abstract should be unstructured and represent an outline of the proposed review paper. It should include the following:
1) An introduction to the problem or gap in the literature
2) The aims and scope of the review
3) A brief summary of the state of the evidence, possibly including any findings from the applicants PhD that are already in the public domain or will be by the time of review submission* (September 2025), followed by
4) Overall conclusions and recommendations,
5) A reference list and any funding acknowledgements.
Presentation criteria: Presentations should consist of a review of the literature and can include the student’s own work where appropriate*.
Since the review presented will be published, it is expected that the content of the review must not have been submitted for publication or published elsewhere and as such it is likely that preference will be given to applicants who are in the final year of their postgraduate programme.
* As review papers are published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society they cannot contain unpublished data and as such any data generated by the student that is included in the review paper would already be published (as a full paper or abstract) or in press.
For further information on criteria and application forms to prepare your submission, please refer to the 'How to apply' section below.
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How to apply?
Applicants are required to provide:
1. Abstracts will be scored on originality and how the review contributes to knowledge. Download the submission guidelines here.
2. A structured proforma should be submitted including a list of educational qualifications, PhD title and date of submission (expected or actual), supervisors, any previous awards and prizes, publications and presentations undertaken to date. Download the proforma here.
3. A 250 word biography which will be used for the conference programme booklet (if the applicant were successful).