Editorial
Last year the Editor and Editorial Board of Advances in Applied Ceramics launched the Davidge Award, an international competition to encourage the career development of young researchers through the writing of high quality critical reviews of the literature. The winning review receives wide exposure by being published, following peer review, in the journal. Runners-up deemed by the judges to be of a sufficient standard may also be offered the opportunity to revise their entries for publication.
I am pleased to announce that the winner of the inaugural (2010) Davidge award is published in this issue of Advances in Applied Ceramics. The award was won by Cekdar Vakifahmetoglu (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA) for his paper entitled, ‘Fabrication and properties of ceramic 1D nanostructures from preceramic polymers: a review’. The paper was based on the author’s PhD thesis, ‘Properties and characterisation of porous ceramics with hierarchical porosity’, which was recently completed at the University of Padua, Italy. It is a well written and thorough account of the subject that contains some stunning images.
The Davidge Award is a biannual prize for the best literature review by a PhD student on an innovative topic in ceramics. It commemorates the distinguished contributions to the science and application of ceramics made by the late Roger Davidge (1936–97).
During a career spent largely at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell during the laboratory’s heyday, and also at Leeds and Oxford universities, Roger Davidge pioneered the introduction of fracture mechanics concepts to ceramics. His research led to significant advances in areas that included fracture, toughness, fatigue, thermal shock and the statistics of mechanical fracture. Readers may refer to the obituary published in British Ceramic Transactions (Vol. 96, No. 6, 1997) for a full account of his career.
The award is run and judged by the Editorial Board of Advances in Applied Ceramics. As the specialist ceramics journal of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining the journal has the remit to contribute to the Institute’s objectives of professional and personal development. It is open to postgraduates studying for a materials science and engineering related qualification at any academic institution worldwide. The next call for entries will be announced in early 2012.
The review is freely accessible online throughout May and June 2011 at (DOI 10·1179/1743676111Y.0000000007).
Emma Leighton
Managing Editor
Advances in Applied Ceramics: Structural, Functional and Bioceramics