Every year, the European Working Group for Glow Discharge Spectroscopy (EW-GDS) will make a financial award in memory of Professor Edward Steers to the author(s) of what is considered to be the best publication related to Glow Discharge. The deadline for submission will be February of the following year, and the prize will be announced in April, at the International Glow Discharge Symposium if one is scheduled. If the award is in a year that does not have an IGDSS then it will be announced on this web site and by EW-GDS newsletter and other channels mentioned later.

The titles and references for the awards are listed at the bottom of this page.

The first award, for best paper of 2019, was scheduled to be announced at the 5th International Glow Discharge Symposium, due to be held in Oviedo, Spain, in April 2020, but this was postponed as a result of the Coronavirus which has had such a devastating and global effect.

But we did have a very encouraging level of entry to be considered for this award, and so it was judged as normal and the award made remotely. The winner for the best 2019 publication was Karsten Richter et al of Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württembergand, Ulm, Germany. You can click Here to see the deserving winner!

The Coronavirus pandemic again caused us to cancel the IGDSS in Oviedo in 2021, but there was still a strong entry for the Best Publication Award of 2020, and so it was awarded remotely. The deserving winner for 2020 was Zdenek Weiss from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. Click here to see Zdenek with his instrument.

In 2022, we held a symposium in Oviedo, Spain. It was actually a Hybrid event, with almost half the contributors and delegates attending remotely. So it was a pleasure to announce the winner and award the prize in person. The winner of the Best GD Publication for 2021 was Jaime Orejas of the University of Oviedo. Details of the publication are given at the bottom of this page, and a picture of Jaime receiving the award can be seen by clicking here

Finally, the award for Best Publication of 2022 was awarded to Volker Hoffmann et al. There has not been a formal presentation as yet as there has not been a suitable meeting, but I am pleased to say that there will be an opportunity to put this right in October when there will be a special session at the SciX conference in Reno, Nevada. The session will be focused on the Edward Steers Memorial Award for Best Publication, and details can be found on our Forthcoming Events page. A picture of Volker and his co-authors can be found by clicking here.

Any paper submitted can deal with any type of analytical glow discharge, including, but not limited to, GD-OES, GD-MS, solution cathode, and other atmospheric pressure discharges. It may focus on fundamental plasma properties, practical applications, instrumentation, software simulations or any other related aspect of Glow Discharges.