INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY OF MOSCOW

Contest for Young Mathematicians

sponsored by Dmitry Zimin's Foundation "Dynasty"

Rules and comments

Preamble

The contest is targeted to young Russian mathematicians.

The aim of the contest is to support the mathematical sciences in the Russian Federation by

ž        supporting post graduate students, young researchers without a degree, and young researchers with a candidate of science or doctor of science degree specializing in various branches of mathematics;

ž        broadening scientific and professional contactsš among young mathematicians;

ž        forming a professional scientific community.

Programs of the contest

The contest is organized within the framework of the two following Programs:

• Support program for graduate students and young scientists with only an undergraduate degree (Program 1);
• Support program for young scientists with a science degree (Program 2) šcontains two subprograms:
  — Support program for young scientists with a candidate of science degree (subprogram 2.1.);
  — Support program for young scientists with a doctor of science degree (subprogram 2.2.).

Participants

Participants in the contest can be:

ž        in the framework of Program 1, graduate and postgraduate students not older than 30 and researchers without a degree not older than 35, citizens of the Russian Federation or of one of the countries of the USS, carrying out their research activities in the territory of the Russian Federation and specializing in various branches of mathematics;

ž        in the framework of Program 2, young researchers, citizens of the Russian Federation or of one of the countries of the USS, holding a degree of candidate or of doctor of science, not older than 35 (for candidates of science) or not older than 45 (for doctors of science), carrying out their research activities in the territory of the Russian Federation and specializing in various branches of mathematics.

Organization

The competitors provide a research statement accompanied by other documents listed in the  Application section below. The Jury sends the whole package to appropriate reviewers.

The winners of the competition are chosen by the Jury no later than December 31of the current year. The choice will be based on a discussion of the proposal by the Jury, based in turn on the peer reviews collected. The deadline to submit the application is the 15th of October of the current year.

Winners

Winners of the Contest are those participants whose projects obtain the most votes of the Jury members.

The number of winners of the contest must be

• in the framework of Program 1, no more than 10;
• in the framework of Program 2, no more than 6.

The number of winners in each of the subprograms (candidates or doctors) are not fixed.

The winners are awarded diplomas of the "Dynasty" Foundation.

The winners are also awarded

• under Program 1: a monthly stipend of 8 000 rubles, which is paid beginning with January of the year that follows the year of participation in the Contest; the stipend continues for one year, but may be extended to each of the two subsequent years provided the Jury approves the yearly activity reports submitted by the grantee;
• under Subprogram 2.1 of Program 2 (candidates of science): a monthly stipend of 15 000 rubles, which is paid beginning with January of the year that follows the year of participation in the Contest; the stipend continues for one year, but may be extended to each of the two subsequent years provided the Jury approves the yearly activity reports submitted by the grantee;
• under Subprogram 2.2 of Program 2 (doctors of science): a monthly stipend of 20 000 rubles, which is paid beginning with January of the year that follows the year of participation in the Contest; the stipend continues for one year, but may be extended to each of the two subsequent years provided the Jury approves the yearly activity reports submitted by the grantee.

The actual payment of the stipends occurs once every three months according to the following scheme:

ž        stipend for January-March, no later than April 15;

ž        stipend for April-June, no later than July 15;

ž        stipend for July-September, no later than October 15; s

ž        stipend for October-December, no later than December 31 of the year during which the stipend is paid.

Payment Conditions of the Stipends

• Only one stipend per person can be granted in the framework of the same Program (Subprogram), except to doctors of science; the payment of two grants simultaneously is not allowed;
• at the end of each year each grantee must present an annual report with a summary of achievements for the past year and of plans for the forthcoming year. At the end of the grant period, a final report must be presented;
• when possible, the grantee must present a talk on the results of his investigations at conferences organized by the "Dynasty" Foundation and the IUM, as well as give lectures to university students about state-of-the-art fundamental research;
• the grantee agrees to the publication (on paper or in electronic form) by the "Dynasty" Foundation of his annual reports;
• the grantee admits that the "Dynasty" Foundation has the right to use any information concerning the results of the Contest, including the financial conditions;
• the grantee informs the "Dynasty" Foundation whenever he/she leaves the Russian Federation for a period of over two months of the year during which the stipend is allocated; in that case the payments are suspended during that period; if the grantee leaves the country for over four months, the payments are terminated;
• in the case when the grantee suspends his research activity, the payment of the stipend is terminated from the month when research was suspended; in that case the payments will be transferred to the post graduate, to the young researcher without a degree, to the candidate of sciences or the doctor of sciences appearing in the reserve list at the highest position.

All the papers submitted by the grantee during the grant period should have a reference that it was partly funded by "Dynasty" foundation.

The Jury

The Jury for the "Dynasty" šContest is chosen specially for this contest and is independent from any university or other institution.

The Jury consists of two Co-Chairmen, two Vice-Chairmen, two scientific secretaries and numerous experts. The Jury can be enlarged via a unanimous decision of its members provided that at least a quarter of the Jury is present. To deal with technical matters a secretary should be hired to do this job for a salary.

The Jury members

Application

Deadlines

The Jury should receive all the necessary documents till the 15th of October. The contest is normally held in December; the winners start receiving their stipends in January of the next year.

The checklist of documents to be included in the application package

1.     Summary — 1 page.

2.     Research statement — no more than 5 pages + bibliography (unlimited).

3.     Short CV (no publications included) — 1 page

4.     List of publications.

5.     List of three potential recommenders.

The recommenders should be mathematicians familiar with the participant and/or with his work and willing to write a recommendation.

6.     Recommendation of the scientific advisor (optional).

7.     Reprints of papers.

The list of publications (item 4) may also contain other papers.

8.     List of the other scientific grants of the applicant.

Address

The whole package must be presented

• electronically to pdc AT mccme.ru

and also

• a hard copy to the address: 119002, Moscow, B.Vlassievskiy per., 11, "Dynasty" Foundation Contest.

The e-mail letter with the application must be of the special form indicated at the Russian version of this page.

Comments

These comments are not a part of the rules of "Dynasty" Foundation Contest. Their aim is to answer to the most frequent questions of the participants, in order to facilitate the application process.

Research Statement and Summary

The Research Statement should consist of three sections:

1.     Previous research.

2.     Research project.

3.     Teaching experience and plans (optional).

It should be addressed to a broad range of experts in the field where the applicant works and in adjacent fields. The Previous research section should contain rigorous formulations of the results already obtained; the Research project section should also contain the most precise formulations available of some of the expected results. In the intermediate cases (e.g. the result is obtained, and a seminar talk has been made, but the result is not published, or published without proof, or accepted for publication, etc.) the result can be inculded in any section of the project, provided its status is made clear.

The Summary should contain a survey of the same information but without any formulas. It should be addressed to a broad mathematical audience.

List of potential recommenders

Potential recommenders, as a rule, should be mathematicians acquainted with the applicant personally or knowing his/her work. It is assumed that the potential recommenders agreed to review the project. If necessary, the jury may ask a person not in the list to be a recommender, too.

Reprints

It is not assumed that the application package includes reprints of all the published works by the participant. Only papers thought to be important for project assessment must be supplied. (The list of publications can include other papers, too.) If a reprint is not available then a photocopy will suffice. By permission of the jury (ask at pdc AT mccme.ru) some papers can be sent in electronic version only.

Electronic submission of the application

The jury expects to use Internet actively to communicate with contest participants, recommenders, etc. So we ask to send all the electronic versions of papers in case they exist or can be obtained by the author. If an electronic version is not available please point this out explicitly (in the list of publications or in a separate letter).Electronic addresses of potential recommenders are vital.

Please use TeX, PostScript or PDF formats for all the files in your submission. Every electronic document from the checklist above should be put in a separate file.

Information distribution

The information about "Dynasty" foundation contest will be distributed via Internet. The contest site will contain the texts of all project summaries and lists of publications by the applicants. If you agree to publish other information about your project (full text of the project, your CV, texts of the papers, etc.) please let us know.

Applied research

There is no clear boundary between mathematics and its applications. Despite this the jury will primarily assess the mathematical achievements of the project and not its practical applicability.