Article 1 – The Thesis Prize

The Demoucelle Parkinson Charity Thesis Prize will be awarded in 2025 for a thesis, dissertation or master’s thesis on a topic related to Parkinson’s disease.
The winner of the annual Thesis Prize will receive 1,000 euros.

Article 2 – Criteria for application

NOTE: Some small changes & clarifications may be made to these regulations before January 1st 2025.

The conditions for applying for the Thesis Prize are as follows:

  • The thesis was written by a graduating student at a Belgian college or university
  • The thesis is on a topic related to Parkinson’s disease
  • The thesis contains new experimental results collected by the candidate
  • The thesis was defended between 1 August 2024 and 31 July 2025
  • The score achieved on the thesis was at least 15/20
  • Family members of Thesis Prize jury members and employees of the Demoucelle Parkinson Charity are excluded from participating.

Article 3 – Selection procedure

Candidates must submit their entry to the Demoucelle Parkinson Charity between 1 June 2025 and no later than 31 August 2025

The entry must be completed online.

In order to be considered complete, a submission must include:

    • A completed online entry form (available on this web page from 1 June 2025)
    • A digital version of the thesis in NL, FR or EN
    • A well- written and easily understandable English-language summary or abstract about the thesis of max. 1000 words (plus any illustrations, graphs, photos)

Participants will receive confirmation of the successful receipt of their submission once the deadline has passed.

Maximum 5 candidates will be selected by the Thesis jury to advance to the second round.

These 5 candidates will be required to give a 5-minute pitch to the Thesis jury (expected date: end of September) on the basis of which the jury will decide on the award.

Article 4 – the Thesis Jury

  • The Demoucelle Parkinson Charity asbl will appoint an independent jury to determine the award.
  • The decision will be made by a majority of votes. In the event of a tie, the chairman of the jury will decide.
  • The Thesis Jury has the right not to award a Thesis prize if the quality of the entries is judged to be insufficient. If the entries are of a particularly high quality, the Thesis Jury may decide to award two thesis prizes.

Article 5 – Evaluation criteria

Theses will be judged on the basis of three criteria:

  • Scientific quality of the study;
  • The degree to which the study provides new insights;
  • The quality of the summary or abstract and (for the second round) the pitch.

Article 6 – Rights

The author is responsible for the content of the article and thesis.

The Demoucelle Parkinson Charity may use the submitted theses and articles for communication purposes, citing the source, subject to the author’s consent and his/her supervisor. Copyright is not transferred to the Demoucelle Parkinson Charity.

Article 7 – Deliberation and Feedback

The Thesis Jury’s evaluation and deliberation is confidential and no feedback will be given to the candidates afterwards.

 

For questions, please contact: charity@demoucelle.com