European Microscopy Society (EMS)

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Outstanding paper award

The Executive Board of the European Microscopy Society (EMS) decided to instigate an annual EMS “Outstanding Paper Award“.
The award will go to papers containing original work in the field of microscopy which will be judged on scientific merit, technical and general quality, expected impact, originality and relevance to microscopy.
Each year it is intended that one paper will be chosen in each of the categories of (i) Instrumentation and Technique Development, (ii) Materials Sciences and (iii) Life Sciences.

The prize consists of 1000 (one thousand) euro plus a plaque for the first author (per awarded paper) in each category and printed awards for all authors.

Rules and regulations
Click here to submit

Jury members

  • The Awarding Board or “jury” consists of 6 people. 2 jury members are selected per category (Instrumentation and Technique Development, Materials Sciences, Life Sciences), but all have voting rights over all submitted papers
  • One EMS Board member chairs the Awarding Board and is responsible for timely actions, gathering info, reporting, …
  • Voting in the jury is performed in a transparent way (not anonymous) (e-mail votes are eligible)
  • The President of EMS is the non-voting chairman of the jury. It is left to the discretion of the chairman of the jury to balance and process the evaluations of the individual jury members in the light of their different fields of expertise. He/She has no voting rights, except for a final selection in case of a balanced vote
  • Voting members have a maximum term of 3 years, the EMS person responsible as chair can serve several terms
  • EMS does not provide any funds for the members of the jury (communications are expected to occur by e-mail, no face-to-face meetings are requested)
  • The names of the jury members are made public as a single list (no categories listed)
OPA 2025 - 2027 jury members
(judging on papers in 2024 - 2025 - 2026)
  • Emmanuel Beaurepaire (Polytechnic Institute of Paris, Paris, France)
  • Vincenzo Grillo (CNR Nanoscience Institute, Modena, Italy)
  • Mehmet Ali Gulgun (Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey)
  • Pavel Hozak (CAS Institute of Molecular Genetics, Prague, Czechia)
  • Wiebke Möbius (Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany)
  • Ana Maria Sanchez (University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom)


Chair: Igor Weber (Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia)

  • Miran Ceh (Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
  • Ute Kaiser (University Ulm, Ulm, Germany)
  • Peter Nellist (University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom)
  • Florian Schur (IST Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria)
  • Iva Tolic (Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia)
  • Maria Varela (Oak Ridge National Laboratory & University Complutense of Madrid, Madrid, Spain)


Chair: Randi Holmestad (NTNU, Trondheim, Norway)

  • Miran Ceh (Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
  • Juergen Plitzko (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany)
  • Florian Schur (IST Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria)
  • Iva Tolic (Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia)
  • Maria Varela (Oak Ridge National Laboratory & University Complutense of Madrid, Madrid, Spain)


Chair: Randi Holmestad (NTNU, Trondheim, Norway)

  • Jose-Maria Carazo (Universidad Autonoma, Madrid, Spain)
  • Bruno M. Humbel (University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland)
  • Paul Midgley (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK)
  • Francesco Priolo (Università di Catania, Catane, Italy)
  • Erdmann Spieker (Institute for Micro- and Nanostructure Research, Erlangen, Germany)
  • Catherine Venien- Bryan (Université Paris 6, Paris, France)

Chair: Peter Nellist (University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom)

  • Christian Colliex (Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Orsay, France)
  • Alberto Diaspro (Optical Nanoscopy, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy)
  • Eva Olsson (Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers, Sweden)
  • Manfred Ruhle (Max Planck Institute fur Metallforschung, Stuttgart, Germany)
  • Dirk Van Dyck (Electron Microscopy for Materials Science, Antwerp, Belgium)
  • Alice Warley (King’s College, Guy’s Hospital London, UK)


Chair: Rik Brydson (Institute for Materials Research, University of Leeds, UK)

  • José Carrascosa (Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia, Universidad Autonoma, Madrid, Spain)
  • Alan Craven (Department of Physics & Astronomy, Solid State Physics, University of Glasgow, UK)
  • Wolfgang Jäger (Mikrostrukturanalytik, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany)
  • Varpu Marjomäki (Dept of Biology and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
  • Bob Pond (Engineering, University of Exeter, UK)
  • Etienne Snoeck (CEMES, CNRS, Toulouse, France)


Chair: Rik Brydson (Institute for Materials Research, University of Leeds, UK)

Winners

Winners 2024 EMS Outstanding Paper Award

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development.
*J. C. Thiele, *E. Pfitzner and P. Kukura. Single-protein optical holography. Nature Photonics 18, 388–395 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-024-01405-2

2. Materials Sciences.
L. Zhang, M. H. Raza, R. Wu, K. Gruel, C. Dubourdieu, M. Hÿtch and C. Gatel. Quantification of interfacial charges in multilayered nanocapacitors by operando electron holography. Advanced Materials 37(4), 2413691 (2025)#. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202413691
#(first published online: November 25, 2024)

3. Life Sciences.
*P. B. Klar, *D. G. Waterman, *T. Gruene, D. Mullick, Y. Song, J. B. Gilchrist, C. D. Owen, W. Wen, I. Biran, L. Houben, N. Regev-Rudzki, R. Dzikowski, N. Marom, L. Palatinus, P. Zhang, L. Leiserowitz and M. Elbaum. Cryo-tomography and 3D electron diffraction reveal the polar habit and chiral structure of the malaria pigment crystal hemozoin. ACS Central Science 10(8), 1504–1514 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.4c00162

*equal contribution

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development. J. F. Ortas, Pierre Mahou, S. E., C. Stringari, N. N. B. David, L. Bally Cuif, N. Dray, M. Négrerie, W. Supatto, E. Beaurepaire, Label-free imaging of red blood cells and oxygenation with color third-order sum-frequency generation microscopy,  Light: Science & Applications, 12, 29, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-022-01064-4

2. Materials Science. M. Monai*, K. Jenkinson*, A. E. M. Melcherts*,J. N. Louwen, E. A. Irmak, S. Van Aert, T. Altantzis, C. Vogt, W. van der Stam, T. Duchoň, B. Šmíd, E. Groeneveld, P. Berben, S. Bals, and B. M. Weckhuysen, Restructuring of titanium oxide overlayers over nickel nanoparticles during catalysis, Science 380, 644–651, 2023.  https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.adf6984

3. Life Science. S. Otsuka,J. O. B. Tempkin, W. Zhang, A. Z. Politi, A. Rybina, M. J. Hossain, M. Kueblbeck, A. Callegari, B. Koch, N. R. Morero, A. Sali & J. Ellenberg, A quantitative map of nuclear pore assembly reveals two distinct mechanisms, Nature 613, 575-581, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05528-w 

*equal contribution

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: N. Varkentina*, Y. Auad*, S. Y. Woo, A. Zobelli, L. Bocher, J.-D. Blazit, X. Li, M. Tencé, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, O. Stéphan, M. Kociak, L. H. G. Tizei, Cathodoluminescence excitation spectroscopy: Nanoscale imaging of excitation pathways, Science Advances 8, eabq4947, 2022.  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq4947

2. Materials Sciences: M. Wu, C. Harreiß, C. Ophus, M. Johnson, R. H. Fink and E. Spiecker, Seeing structural evolution of organic molecular nano-crystallites using 4D scanning confocal electron diffraction (4D-SCED) Nature Communications 13, 2911, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30413-5

3. Life Sciences: E. Macías-Sánchez, N. V. Tarakina, D. Ivanov, S. Blouin, A. M. Berzlanovich, and P. Fratzl, Spherulitic Crystal Growth Drives Mineral Deposition Patterns in Collagen-Based Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, 2022, 2200504. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202200504

*equal contribution

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: E. Silvester, B. Vollmer, V. Pražák, D. Vasishtan, E.A. Machala, C. Whittle, S. Black, J. Bath, A.J. Turberfield, . Grünewald and L.A. Baker, DNA origami signposts for identifying proteins on cell membranes by electron cryotomography, Cell 184 (2021) 1110-1121. 

2. Materials Sciences: D. Wolf*, S. Schneider*, U. K. Rößler, A. Kovács, M. Schmidt, R. E. Dunin-Borkowski, B. Büchner, B. Rellinghaus and A. Lubk, Unveiling the three-dimensional magnetic texture of Skyrmion tubes, Nature Nanotechnology 17 (2022) 250–255 (online December 2021).

3. Life Sciences: R. Jones, G. Bragagnolo, R. Arranz and J. Reguera, Capping pores of alphavirus nsP1 gate membranous viral replication factories, Nature 589 (2021) 615–619.

*equal contribution

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: D. Mahecic, D. Gambarotto, K. M. Douglass, D. Fortun, N. Banterle, K. A. Ibrahim, M. Le Guennec, P. Gŏnczy, V. Hamel, P. Guichard and S. Manley, Homogeneous multifocal excitation for high-throughput super-resolution imaging, Nature Methods 17 (2020) 726-733.

2. Materials Sciences: M. U. Rothmann, J. S. Kim, J. Borchert, K. B. Lohmann, C. M. O’Leary, A. Sheader, L. Clark, H. J. Snaith, M. B. Johnston, P. D. Nellist and L. M. Herz, Atomic-scale microstructure of metal halide perovskite, Science 370 (2020) 548.

3. Life Sciences: G. Wolff, R. W. A. Limpens, J. C. Zevenhoven-Dobbe, U. Laugks, S. Zheng, A. M. de Jong, R. Koning, D. Agard, K. Grünewald, A. J. Koster, E. J. Snijder and M. Bárcena, A molecular pore spans the double membrane of the coronavirus replication organelle, Science 369 (2020) 1395-1398.

*equal contribution  

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: F. S. Hage, D. M. Kepaptsoglou, Q. M. Ramasse, and L. J. Allen, Physical Review Letters, 122, 016103 (2019), “Phonon Spectroscopy at Atomic Resolution”.

2. Materials Sciences: C. Barroo*, Z. J. Wang*, R. Schlögl and M-G. Willinger*, Nature Catalysis 3, 30–39 (2020) [published online 2019].  “Imaging the dynamics of catalyzed surface reactions by in situ scanning electron microscopy”.

3. Life Sciences: C. Cserép*, B. Pósfai*, N. Lénárt, R. Fekete, Z. I. László, Z. Lele, B. Orsolits, G. Molnár, S. Heindl, A. D. Schwarcz, K. Ujvári, Z. Környei, K. Tóth, E. Szabadits, B. Sperlágh, M. Baranyi, L. Csiba, T. Hortobágyi, Z. Maglóczky, B. Martinecz, G. Szabó, F. Erdélyi, R. Szipőcs, M. M. Tamkun, B. Gesierich, M. Duering, I. Katona, A. Liesz, G. Tamás, Á. Dénes, Science 367, 528-537 (2020), “Microglia monitor and protect neuronal function via specialized somatic purinergic junctions”.

*equal contribution 

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Development of a high brightness ultrafast Transmission Electron Microscope based on a laser-driven cold field emission source”, F. Houdellier, G.M. Caruso, S. Weber, M. Kociak, A. Arbouet, Ultramicroscopy 186 128–138, 2018.

2. Life Sciences: “The mitotic spindle is chiral due to torques within microtubule bundles”, M. Novak, B. Polak, J. Simunić, Z. Boban, B. Kuzmić, A. Thomae, I. Tolić, and N. Pavin, Nature Communications 9, 3571, 2018.

3. Materials Sciences: “Reversible superdense ordering of lithium between two graphene sheets “, M. Kühne, F. Börrnert, S. Fecher, M. Gorbani‐Asl, J. Biskupek, D. Samuelis, A. V. Krasheninnikov, U. Kaiser and J. H. Smet, Nature 564, 234–239, 2018.

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Hydrogen positions in single nanocrystals revealed by electron diffraction”. Palatinus, P. Brázda, P. Boullay, O. Perez, M. Klementová, S. Petit, V. Eigner, M. Zaarour, S. Mintova. Science 355 (2017) 166-169. DOI: 10.1126/science.aak9652.

2. Materials Sciences: “Carrier Localization in GaN/AlN Quantum Dots As Revealed by Three-Dimensional Multimicroscopy”. L. Mancini, F. Moyon, D. Hernandez-Maldonado, I. Blum, J. Houard, W. Lefebvre, F. Vurpillot, A. Das, E. Monroy, and L. Rigutti. Nano Letters 17 (2017) 4261-4269. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b01189.

3. Life Sciences: “Influenza virus genome reaches the plasma membrane via a modified endoplasmic reticulum and Rab11-dependent vesicles”. I. Fernández de Castro Martin, G. Fournier, M. Sachse, J. Pizarro-Cerda, C. Risco and N. Naffakh. Nature Communications 8 (2017) 1396. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01557-6.

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Nanoscale thermal imaging of dissipation in quantum systems” ,D. Halbertal, J. Cuppens, M. Ben Shalom, L. Embon, N. Shadmi, Y. Anahory, H. R. Naren, J. Sarkar, A. Uri, Y. Ronen, Y. Myasoedov, L. S. Levitov, E. Joselevich, A. K. Geim and E. Zeldov; Nature 539 (2016) 407-410. DOI:10.1038/nature19843.

2. Materials Sciences: “Interface dynamics and crystal phase switching in GaAs nanowires”, D. Jacobsson, F. Panciera, J. Tersoff, M.C. Reuter, S. Lehmann, S. Hofmann, K.A. Dick, F.M. Ross; Nature 531 (2016) 317-322. DOI:10.1038/nature17148.

3. Life Sciences: “Visualizing the molecular sociology at the HeLa cell nuclear periphery”, J. Mahamid, S. Pfeffer, M. Schaffer, E. Villa, R. Danev, L. Kuhn Cuellar, F. Förster, A. A. Hyman,J.M. Plitzko and W. Baumeister; Science 351 (2016) 969-972. DOI:10.1126/science.aad8857.

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Quantum coherent optical phase modulation in an ultrafast transmission electron microscope”, A. Feist, K. E. Echternkamp, J. Schauss, S. V. Yalunin, Sascha Schafer and Claus Ropers; Nature 521, 200-203 (2015); doi:10.1038/nature14463;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25971512

2. Materials Sciences: “Imaging screw dislocations at atomic resolution by aberration-corrected electron optical sectioning”, Yang, H., Lozano, J. G., Pennycook, T. J., Jones, L., Hirsch, P.B., Nellist, P.D.; Nature Communications 6, 7266 (2015); doi:10.1038/ncomms8266;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26041257

3. Life Sciences: “Imaging G protein-coupled receptors while quantifying their ligand-binding free-energy landscape”, D. Alsteens, M. Pfreundschuh, C. Zhang, P. M. Spoerri, S. R. Coughlin, B. K. Kobilka and D. J. Müller; Nature Methods 12, 845-851 (2015); doi: 10.1038/nmeth.3479;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26167642

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Volta potential phase plate for in-focus phase contrast transmission electron microscopy”, R. Danev, B. Buijsse, M. Khoshouei, J. M. Plitzko and W. Baumeister; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 111, 15635-15640 (2014); doi: 10.1073/pnas.1418377111 

2. Materials Sciences: “Polarity-Driven Polytypic Branching in Cu-Based Quaternary Chalcogenide Nanostructures”, R. R. Zamani, M. Ibáñez, M. Luysberg, N. Garcia-Castelló, L. Houben, J.D. Prades, V. Grillo, R. E. Dunin-Borkowski, J. Ramón Morante, A. Cabot and J. Arbiol; ACS Nano 8, 2290–2301 (2014); doi: 10.1021/nn405747h

3. Life Sciences: “Cryo-scanning transmission electron tomography of vitrified cells”, S. Grayer Wolf, L. Houben and M. Elbaum; Nature Methods 11, 423-428 (2014); doi:10.1038/nmeth.2842

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “‘A new aberration-corrected, energy-filtered LEEM/PEEM instrument II. Operation and results”, R.M. Tromp, J.B. Hannon, W. Wan, A. Berghaus and O. Schaff; Ultramicroscopy, 127 (2013) 25–39; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2012.07.016 

2. Materials Sciences: “Dislocations in bilayer graphene”, B. Butz, C. Dolle, F. Niekiel, K. Weber, D. Waldmann, H. B. Weber, B. Meyer and E. Spiecker; Nature (published online); doi:10.1038/nature12780

3. Life Sciences: “A mammalian KASH domain protein coupling meiotic chromosomes to the cytoskeleton”, H. F. Horn, D. In Kim, G. D. Wright, E. Sook Miin Wong, C. L. Stewart, B. Burke and K. J. Roux; C. Biology, 202: 1023-1039;www.jcb.org/cgi/doi/10.1083/jcb.201304004

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “‘Big Bang’ tomography as a new route to atomic-resolution electron tomography”, D. Van Dyck, J. R. Jinschek and F.R Chen; Nature 486, 243-246 (2012); DOI:10.1038/nature11074 

2. Materials Sciences: “Toroidal Plasmonic Eigenmodes in Oligomer Nanocavities for the Visible”, B. Ögüt, N. Talebi, R. Vogelgesang, W. Sigle and PA van Aken; Nano Letters 12, 5239-5244 (2012); DOI.org/10.1021/nl302418n

3. Life Sciences: “Virtual nanoscopy: Generation of ultra-large high resolution electron microscopy maps”, F.G Faas, M.C Avramut, B.M Van Den Berg, A.M Mommaas, A.J Koster and R.B Ravelli; Cell Biology 198, 457-469 (2012); DOI:10.1083/jcb.201201140

1. Instrumentation and Technique Development: “Atomic resolution imaging in three dimensions”, S. Van Aert, K. Batenburg, M. Rossell, R. Erni, G. Van Tendeloo, Nature 470, 376-377 (2011); DOI:10.1038/nature09741 

2. Materials Sciences: “Highly monodisperse core-shell particles created by solid-state reactions”, V. Radmilovic, C. Ophus, E. Marquis, M. Rossell, A. Tolley, A. Gautam, M. Asta, U. Dahmen, Nature Materials 10 710-715 (2011), DOI:10.1038/NMAT3077

3. Life Sciences: “A Genome-wide multidimensional RNAi screen reveals pathways controlling MHC class II antigen presentation”, P. Paul, T. van den Hoorn, M. Jongsma, M. Bakker, R. Hengeveld, L. Janssen, P. Cresswell, D. Egan, M. van Ham, A. ten Brinke, H. Ovaa, R. Beijersbergen, C. Kuijl, J. Neefjes, Cell, 145(2) 268-283 (2011), DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2011.03.023

1. Instrumentation: “Production and application of electron vortex beams”, Nature 467, 301-304 (2010) by J. Verbeeck, H. Tian and P. Schattschneider, doi:10.1038/nature09366.

2. Materials Sciences: “Interpretation of electron diffraction patterns from amorphous and fullerene-like carbon allotropes”, Ultramicroscopy 110, 815-819 (2010) by Z. Czigany and L. Hultman, doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.02.005.

3. Life Sciences: “Superresolution Imaging of Chemical Synapses in the Brain”, Neuron 68, 843-856 (2010) by A. Dani, B. Huang, J. Bergan, C. Dulac and X. Zhuang, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.021.