Illustration by Jan Kallwejt

This year, Nature turns 150 years old. To mark this occasion, we are celebrating our past but also looking to the future.

We would like to hear from you. Nature is launching an essay competition for readers aged 18 to 25. We invite you to tell us, in an essay of no more than 1,000 words, what scientific advance, big or small, you would most like to see in your lifetime, and why it matters to you. We want to feature the inspiring voices and ideas of the next generation.

The deadline for completed essays is midnight, UK time, on 9 August 2019. The winner will have their essay published in our 150th anniversary issue on 7 November, and receive a cash prize (£500 or equivalent) as well as a year’s personal subscription to the journal.

We are looking for essays that are well reasoned, well researched, forward-looking, supported by existing science, and leave room for personal perspective and anecdotes that show us who you are. We encourage you to entertain as well as to inform; we are not looking for academic papers, an academic writing style or science fiction. Submitted essays will be judged by a panel of editors, including Nature’s editor-in-chief Magdalena Skipper, physicist Jess Wade at Imperial College London, and immunologist Faith Osier from the KEMRI–Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya.

E-mail any questions to essaycompetition@nature.com. We look forward to reading your imaginative and thought-provoking essays.

Further information and how to submit

Once you’re ready to submit your essay, please do so here.

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