Young Neurosurgeons Award Committee Report

Young Neurosurgeons Award Committee Report
Paulo Pereira, Chair

1. The Committee, as stated in the WFNS bylaws, will evaluate the papers applying for the Young Neurosurgeons Award (YNA) for the XVII WFNS World Congress of Neurosurgery, in Bogota, Colombia.

2. Committee Members:
     Paulo Pereira, Portugal (chairman)
     Ahmed Toma, UK
     Bernardo Ratilal, Portugal
     Graham Fieggen, South Africa
     Iype Cherian, Nepal
     João Pinheiro Franco, Brazil
     Mohamed El-Fiki, Egypt
     Michael Steinmetz, USA
     Onur Yaman, Turkey
     Ronald Bartels, Netherlands
     Sanjay Behari, India
     Sérgio Salvador, Mozambique
     Victor Perez, Mexico
     Yoko Kato, Japan

3. Application criteria
   On June 2020, the application criteria were clarified to become more objective and avoid misinterpretation. They now have the following wording:

   1. Applicants must have obtained their neurosurgical qualifications less than ten (10) years before the date of submission of the paper and must be under 40 years of age on the same date
   2. Residents and Students are not allowed to apply
   3. Papers should contain original, unpublished work on basic research or clinical studies related to Neurosurgery
   4. Applicant must send a pdf file (not more than 10 double spaced typewritten pages exclusive of figures and tables)
   5. Applicant must provide her/his curriculum vitae (CV) specifically mentioning the date when the neurosurgical qualification has been obtained
   6. Applicant must provide a copy of ID or passport containing the date of birth
   7. Each application should be accompanied by a recommendation letter from the head of the applicant's Neurosurgical department, expressing her/his support for the application, validating the applicant’s CV and confirming that the present work is original and has not been published
4. Application window
   The application window for papers for the XVII WFNS World Congress was set from August 29, 2020 to February 28, 2021. Given the decision to postpone the Congress to March 2022, the Committee decided, accordingly, to postpone the deadline for submission of papers to August 31, 2021.
5. Announcement
   The announcement of Young Neurosurgeon Award has been placed on the WFNS website under rotating banner and on the website of the XVII WFNS World Congress of Neurosurgery. An announcement was added to the News menu of WFNS website on September 10, 2020 and was sent out by WFNS e-blast system to encourage more young neurosurgeons to submit their papers. New announcements to inform about the postponement of the papers’ submission deadline will be issued using the same channels.
6. Papers submitted
   Until February 28, 2021 45 submissions were received, which falls far short of the 153 papers received for 2019 WFNS Special World Congress in Beijing. Certainly, the pandemic situation we are living, and all the uncertainties related to it will not be oblivious to this fact.
   In view of the new deadline for the submission of papers, the WFNS Young Neurosurgeons Award Committee decided to offer the authors who have submitted their papers an opportunity to update their data/ manuscript. This information will be sent to the first author of each paper by email.
7. Evaluation Process
   • 7.1. First evaluation
     • 7.1.1. Every paper will be rated by 2 committee members using a scale from 1 (worse) to 5 (best) and the mean score will be calculated. Committee members will not evaluate papers coming from their own countries
       7.1.2. Papers with a score difference above 2 points (in the 1-5 points scale) between the 2 reviewers will be scored by a third reviewer and the mean of the 3 scores will be calculated
       7.1.3.In order to take into consideration the variability among reviewers regarding scoring criteria, mean scoreswillbe calculated for each reviewer and a corrected score will be computed for each paper according to the formula:
       
       

       corrected score = score by reviewer ×

       mean global score    mean score of reviewer

       
       7.1.4. Papers with a mean score or a corrected score of more than 4 out of 5 points will be selected for the second evaluation
   • 7.2. Second evaluation
     • 7.2.1. The highest scored papers will undergo a second evaluation
       7.2.2. All these papers will be scored by all Committee members using the following 0-25 scoring scale:
       a . Topic & relevance: 0-5 points (interest, significance, originality)
       b . Materials and Methods: 0-5 points (study type, sample size, length of follow-up, methodology, statistics)
       c . Results: 0-5 points (clarity,completeness, interpretation, discussion)
       d . Conclusions: 0-5 points(relevance,supported by results, significance)
       e . Global quality of the paper: 0-5 points (form, structure, language, figures & tables, references)
       7.2.3. The 10 highest scored papers will be selected for final decision regarding WFNS YNA (5 papers) and honorable mentions (5 papers)
   • 7.3. Final decision (10 papers) The final decision regarding the papers to receive the 5 awards and the 5 honorable mentions will be shared among all Committee members and will take into account: a . The final score b . A balance between clinical and basic research papers c . A distribution between neurosurgical topics / research areas
8. Presentation of the awarded papers
   The WFNS Young Neurosurgeons Award Committee proposed to the Organizing and Scientific Committees of the XVII WFNS World Congress of Neurosurgery to include in the program of the congress a dedicated session to present the papers receiving the WFNS Young Neurosurgeons Award.