Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that Crystals is now inviting nominations for the Crystals 2022 Young Investigator Award. This prize will be awarded to one young investigator in recognition of her/his excellence in the field of crystallography, including areas such as crystalline materials, crystal engineering, liquid crystals, biomolecular crystals, industrial crystallization, and mineralogical crystallography and biomineralization. All nominations will be assessed by an evaluation committee led by the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen.

The prize:
– CHF 1000 (Swiss Francs);
– The option to publish one paper free of charge in Crystals after peer review before the end of 30 June 2023;
– An engraved plaque.

Eligibility and requirements:
– Must have got doctoral degree and be below 35 years of age;
– Must have produced ground-breaking research and provided a significant; contribution to the advancement of the research field;
– Candidates must be nominated by senior scientists.

List of documents for nomination:
– Detailed curriculum vitae including an updated publication list and a list of the researcher’s own research grants;
– Birth certificate or other proof of age;
– Scanned copy of doctorate certificate;
– Signed nomination letters from two established senior scientists.

Schedule:
– Open for nominations: 1st January 2022
– Nomination deadline: 31st October 2022
– Winner announced: 30th November 2022

Please do not hesitate to contact us by email with any questions. We look forward to receiving your nominations.

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Crystals (MDPI, Switzerland, ISSN 2073-4352, https://0-www-mdpi-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/journal/crystals) is inviting applications for the Crystals 2022 Best Ph.D. Thesis Award. This prize will be awarded to a Ph.D. student who is about to graduate or participate in the graduation thesis defense. The applications will be assessed by an evaluation committee consisting of senior scholars from the Crystals Editorial Board.

Eligibility Requirements:

• The candidate must be a Ph.D. student who is going to graduate or participate in graduation thesis defense;
• The Ph.D. thesis must be original work;
• The Ph.D. thesis must be defended between 1 September, 2020, and 31 August, 2022.

• An executive summary of the Ph.D. thesis in English, of around 3000 words;
• A letter from the Ph.D. supervisor recommending the candidate for consideration for this award;
• The candidate’s CV, including a list of publications connected with the thesis;
• An electronic copy of the Ph.D. thesis;
• A scanned copy of the Ph.D. diploma.
  

Selection Criteria:

• Quality of resume and publications;
• Relevance of the candidate and research description;
• Novelty of the candidate’s Ph.D. thesis;
• Strength of the recommendation letter;
• Anticipated academic potential;
• Originality and impact of the research.

Prizes:

• Bonus (CHF 500);
• Certificate.

Please submit your application online by 1 September 2022. The winner will be announced on the Crystals website in 30 September 2022.

Dear Colleagues,

To acknowledge the authors’ support and recognize their outstanding scientific accomplishment, the Editorial Board is proud to announce the Crystals 2021 Best Paper Award. We hope this award will encourage the publishing of high-quality papers in the journal.

All papers published in 2021 are eligible for the award. The award committee, which is composed of Crystals Editorial Board Members, will carefully evaluate the papers according to the scientific rigor, the contribution to the field, and the originality of the work. Two articles will be selected for the award.

Eligibility for the Award:
– Papers published in Crystals in 2021;
– Open to all career levels;
– Both regular and Special Issue submissions will be considered.

Selection Criteria:
The papers will be selected by the journal Award Committee according to the following criteria (data source: Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)):
– Scientific merit and broad impact;
– Relevance to the field;
– Originality of the research objectives and/or the ideas presented;
– Creativity of the study design or uniqueness of the approaches and concepts;
– Clarity of presentation;
– Citation and download rates in 2022.

Prizes:
Two final winners will be selected for the Crystals 2021 Best Paper Award. Each winner will receive:
– A cash award of 500 CHF and an opportunity to publish a paper in Crystals free of charge;
– Each winner will receive a certificate.

The winners will be announced on the journal website in January 2023.

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen, we wish to acknowledge the reviewers who so generously give their time to review the papers submitted to Crystals. We are therefore pleased to announce that we are launching an award, given to two reviewers who have demonstrated their dedication, professionalism, and timeliness in reviewing manuscripts for Crystals.

Who is eligible for this award?

–– All of the reviewers for Crystals in 2021 will be automatically included.

What are the assessment criteria?

–– Number of review reports (only first review reports are considered);
–– Review quality based on the rating given in SuSy;
–– Review speed.

What will the winners receive?

There will be two winners this year, and each will receive the following: 
–– 500 Swiss francs;
–– The opportunity to publish a paper free of charge before the end of 30 June 2022;
–– A certificate.

When will the winners be announced?

–– The winners will be announced in January 2022 on the journal website.

How can I make myself eligible?

–– If you have not yet reviewed papers for Crystals but would like to do so, you can register as a reviewer at the following link: https://susy.mdpi.com/volunteer/profile/edit

Kind regards,
Crystals Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Evaluation Committee, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Crystals 2021 Travel Awards. Two awards were granted to:

Dr. Gaojun Mao is a postdoctoral researcher at Laboratory for Nuclear Materials, Nuclear Energy and Safety Department, Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland. His current research focuses on probabilistic integrity analyses of critical reactor pressure vessels, nozzles and piping by considering active damage mechanisms such as stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and fatigue. He will attend the 26th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology to be held 8 – 13 August 2021, in Berlin, Germany, which has been rescheduled to 2022 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Mrs Lidia Bofill Herrera completed her Chemistry degree and started MsC in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2016. In 2018, she started her PhD in a project about Crystal Engineering of nutraceutical compounds and published research results in journals such as Crystal Growth & Design and CrystEngComm. She is planning to attend BACG 2022 or International School of Crystallization 2022.

Both recipients were each awarded 800 Swiss francs. We congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

We would like to thank all the applicants for contributing with their highquality submissions, and the Evaluation Committee members for reviewing the numerous applications.

Crystals Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

The editorial team would like to congratulate the winners of the Crystals 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards, who were chosen by a selection committee chaired by the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen. Following a review process by the Evaluation Committee, four winners were selected. The recipients of the “Crystals 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards” are as follows:

Article:

Rank 1 Award: (800 CHF + Certificate)
Crystal and Magnetic Structures in Layered, Transition Metal Dihalides and Trihalides
by Michael A. McGuire
Crystals 2017, 7(5), 121; 10.3390/cryst7050121

Rank 2 Award: (500 CHF + Certificate)
σ-Hole Interactions: Perspectives and Misconceptions
by Peter Politzer and Jane S. Murray
Crystals 2017, 7(7), 212; 10.3390/cryst7070212

Rank 3 Award: (300 CHF + Certificate)
σ-Hole Interactions of Covalently-Bonded Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Arsenic: A Survey of Crystal Structures
by Peter Politzer, Jane S. Murray, Goran V. Janjić and Snežana D. Zarić 
Crystals 2014, 4(1), 12-31; 10.3390/cryst4010012

Review:

Rank 1 Award: (800 CHF + Certificate)
Epitaxial Graphene on SiC: A Review of Growth and Characterization
By: Gholam Reza Yazdi, Tihomir Iakimov and Rositsa Yakimova
Crystals 2016, 6(5), 53; 10.3390/cryst6050053

Please join us in congratulating the winners of Crystals 10th Anniversary Best Paper Awards. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our authors for your continued support of Crystals.

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Evaluation Committee, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Crystals Travel Awards 2020. Two awards were granted to:

Dr. Daria Szewczyk, a young researcher at the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research PAS Wroclaw, Poland. Her research is related to the thermal properties investigations, mostly in molecular crystals and glasses exhibiting different types of orientational disorder. She will attend the 23rd European Conference on the Dynamics of Molecular Systems (MOLEC 2020).

Ms. Laura Otter, a Ph.D. student and research associate at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the biomineralization process of marine calcifiers such as bivalve shells, bryozoans, and pearls. She was planning to attend the Gordon Research Conference on Biomineralization held 9–14 August, 2020 in Castelldefels, Spain, which has been rescheduled to 2022 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Both recipients were each awarded 800 Swiss francs. We congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

We would like to thank all the applicants for contributing with their high quality submissions, and the Evaluation Committee members for reviewing the numerous applications.

Crystals Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Evaluation Committee, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Crystals Travel Awards 2019. Two awards were granted to:

• Mr. Daniel Adam Decato, Ph.D. student at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA.
• Dr. Haegyeom Kim, Postdoctoral Fellow at Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Mr. Daniel Adam Decato is a Ph.D student in organic chemistry at the University of Montana, Missoula, USA (in the laboratory of Professor Orion Berryman). His research focuses on fundamental and functional aspects of the halogen bond, with a recent focus on the synergy between hydrogen and halogen bonds. He will attend the 1st International Conference on Noncovalent Interactions (ICNI) held on 2–6 September 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Haegyeom Kim is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA. His research is related to the design and development of energy storage materials, mainly focused beyond Li ion batteries. He will attend the conference the 22nd Solid State Ionics (SSI-22) conference held on 16–21 June 2019 in PyeongChang, Korea.

Both recipients were each awarded 800 Swiss francs towards their travel expenses to attend the conferences in 2019. We congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

We would like to thank all the applicants for contributing with their highquality submissions, and the Evaluation Committee members for reviewing the numerous applications.

Crystals Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Evaluation Committee, we are pleased to announce the winner of the 2018 Crystals Travel Awards. It has been granted to: Dr. Wenhao Sun, a postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA. His work involves developing new thermodynamic frameworks and density functional theory (DFT)-based tools to investigate solid-aqueous phase equilibria at the nanoscale, competitive nucleation, and constrained equilibria.

Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen
Editor-in-Chief

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Evaluation Committee, we are pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Crystals Travel Awards. These have been granted to:

Dr. Benjamin Frandsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. His work is focused on magnetic pair distribution function analysis of diffuse magnetic scattering.

And to:
Dr. Matthew Dunstan, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. His work is focused on harnessing the power of large databases of computationally determined structures of materials, to predict new candidates for use in carbon capture and storage (CCS) applications, in particular on materialsthat are able to reversibly release and recover oxygen from their structure.

Prof. Dr. Helmut Cölfen
Editor-in-Chief