[UPDATE: The competition has been concluded. You can read about the winners here.]
The mission of the open think tank atlantic-community.org is to broaden the foreign policy debate, give a voice to a new generation of thinkers and to contribute to a more diverse transatlantic strategic community. Since women are still underrepresented in positions of power and political leadership, a key part of this mission is providing publishing and networking opportunities to encourage more young women to share their own ideas on international security issues with senior experts. This coincides with the goals of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for increasing the influence of women in all aspects of peace and security and was passed on October 30, 2000.
To mark the 10th anniversary of this landmark UN Resolution and help realize its aims, we are launching the op-ed competition "Women on Transatlantic Security," which is sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division and the United States Mission to NATO.
This competition brings together young aspiring female leaders and voices their perspectives and valuable experience on major issues concerning global security. We wish to support young women who are in the early stages of their careers by prominently featuring their analyses and policy recommendations as well as increase the overall visibility of women in the international security debate. Moreover, by leveling the playing field, this competition will further the prospect of future employment of young women in the security sphere.
Awards
The first prize is 900,- EUR. Second prize is 600,- EUR and third prize is 300,-EUR.
Guidelines
Your op-ed should be 500-1000 words long on an issue broadly related to transatlantic security, e.g. the new NATO Strategic Concept, NATO-Russia relations, the Afghanistan mission, piracy, cyber security, energy security, missile defense, terrorism, proliferation, the security implications of climate change, relevance of gender issues in conflict dynamics, or any other security issue that is of importance to both Europe and North America, including less traditional ones. We have a broad understanding of transatlantic relations and security and are open to your thematic suggestions. We appreciate strong theses, bold ideas and new arguments as well as a solution-oriented approach with specific policy recommendations. The op-ed should also be comprehensible to members of the general public and not include dense scientific or technical jargon.
Please submit your original, non-published op-ed in English and through this website. Simply register to create an account for free and then click on the “submit article” button on the front page. Mention in the headline field that the submission is for this competition. You can also email your op-ed to staff@atlantic-community.org
Submissions will be edited only for language and clarity, in order to highlight arguments and to level the playing field between English native speakers and participants with other language backgrounds.
Deadline
Please submit your article by March 13, 2011. We encourage early submissions as we will begin publishing all articles that meet the guidelines on a rolling basis from February 2011.
Eligibility
The contest is open to women from NATO Member and Partner States under 40 years of age. Participants must be registered on atlantic-community.org. Each profile must include a personal picture (as all articles on the website are published with an author portrait).
Jury
The competition will be judged by an independent jury from international think tanks, media and governments:
Mr. Spencer P. Boyer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State,
Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Associate Vice President of the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program at the United States Institute of Peace,
Dr. Ulrike Guérot, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Berlin Office of the European Council on Foreign Relations,
Dr. James Joyner, Managing Editor of the Atlantic Council and founder of the popular weblog Outside The Beltway,
Dr. Bente Aika Scheller, Director of the Boell Foundation's Kabul Office.
Articles will be judged on the construction of arguments and policy recommendations as well as on the quality of writing, not on the opinions expressed therein.
About us
Atlantic-community.org is the first online think tank and social community for international relations, with more than 5,300 members from all over the world analyzing and debating global affairs online. Membership is entirely free and registration only takes seconds.
In addition to a daily round up-up of top press commentary, the website features summaries of think tank analyses as well as original opinion articles from members, and information on job/internship opportunities, calls for papers, and events. Atlantic-community.org is a project conducted by the Atlantic Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Berlin, with a sister organization in Washington DC, and an international advisory board. We are dedicated to support and advance future leaders through publishing and networking opportunities that link students and young professionals with senior decision-makers and experts.
Contact us
If you would like to receive updates on the contest, please contact Mr. Joerg Wolf at staff@atlantic-community.org or by phone on +49-30-206 337 88. Moreover, if you have any queries regarding the competition or the open think tank in general, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sponsors
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This competition is sponsored by the
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US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke on the 10th Anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 at United Nations Headquarters. Read her remarks or watch her speech.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has addressed the anniversary in this video message.
Partners
Dr. Colette Mazzucelli, WFI Fellow, Citizens for Global Solutions and Center for Global Affairs at New York University. She is presenting the competition at the panel discussion "Broadening the Security Debate: Transatlantic Issues" organized by Women in International Security's New York Chapter (WIIS-NY) and the World Policy Institute.
If your organization is interested in promoting the competition, please contact us and we will feature your logo too.
Photo: NATO Youth Forum (c) NATO
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November 10, 2010
Olaf Theiler, Political Scientist, German Armed Forces, Platinum Contributor (173)
I think this is a good initiative since the role of woman in peace and security remains still underdeveloped and is not good enough understood, especially in the normally basically male driven world of security policy.
But why are you limiting this call for papers to woman only? This is not only reducing the potential reach out of the initiative, but even damaging the whole purpose of critizising the neglection of one half of the worlds population in security matters - which the UNSCR 1325 does rightfully so - by doing exactly the same mistake towards the other half.
By reducing the efforts of UNSCR 1325 to an issue of pure "feminism", you are weakening an otherwise praiseworthy initiative.
Best regards,
Olaf Theiler