The Organising Committee of the XXIII SIAMOC Congress announces a competition for an internship at the Neuromechanical Modeling And Engineering Lab (NMEL) of the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
The competition is open to young researchers who are under 36 years of age on the closing day of the Society's annual congress and who are SIAMOC members (young members or student members) in good standing. The intention is to provide an opportunity for training and professional growth to motivated and promising young people, allowing them to participate in the activities of an important European scientific reality where, among other things, issues relating to robot-neuromuscular system interfaces for the improvement of human movement are addressed. In particular, within the NMEL, the neuro-muscular-skeletal mechanisms underlying human movement in healthy subjects and those with pathology are studied. We
neuro-mechanical modelling, artificial intelligence and electrophysiological signal processing techniques are applied to develop real-time model-based control technologies to restore natural motor function.
The winner of the competition will receive a cash voucher equivalent to EUR 1,500.00 to be used for travel and accommodation expenses in Twente for the period to be agreed with the director of the Neuromechanical Modeling And Engineering Lab. The winner may extend his/her stay at his/her own expense upon acceptance by the host laboratory. The selection procedure will produce a list of candidates from which a winner will be drawn.
The selection of the winner will take place during the national congress among those who have indicated their request to participate when sending their abstract to the congress. The candidate must present the work in person and be listed as first author.

The selection procedure will be carried out according to the following rules.

•  The Congress Organising Committee appoints the chairman of the evaluation committee; the name of the committee chairman will not be made public before the announcement of the winners.

• Subsequently, the chairman of the committee (or his delegate) will liaise with the author submitting the work and the contact person for the award communicated by him;The President selects and appoints two members of the evaluation commission for the award, aiming at an appropriate distribution of expertise and institutions of origin; the names of the three commission members (including the President) will not be made public;

• The President and the other two members of the committee must be ordinary members of the Society and must be part of the Congress Scientific Committee.

• The President of the Congress will provide the President of the Commission with the list of young members and students under 36 years of age who have applied to participate.

• It will be the responsibility of the President of the Commission, possibly with the help of the SIAMOC Secretary and/or the Congress organisational secretariat, to ascertain the presence of the participation requirements on the part of each candidate and to exclude from the evaluation those who do not meet them.

• Each member of the commission will give each candidate who is eligible to participate in the selection (oral presentation or poster without distinction) a grade in tenths; the scientific value of the work and the quality of the presentation will be equally evaluated.

• The commissioners, including the President of the Commission, shall refrain from awarding marks to candidates presenting papers of which they are co-authors or which come from the same department as themselves; the composition of the commission shall ensure that each paper is assessed by at least two members of the commission. of the committee.

• An average of the marks to one decimal place shall be calculated for each paper.

• A ranking shall be formed on the basis of the average marks awarded.

• In the event that the candidates have obtained the same average mark, the committee shall eliminate the ex-aequo situation by means of a collegial evaluation; in the event that it is not possible to reach a majority conclusion, the evaluation of the chairman of the committee shall be decisive; in the event that the President of the Committee cannot resolve the ex-aequo because he/she is a co-author of one of the papers in question (or belongs to the same department as one of the authors of such papers), the candidate whose abstract received the highest evaluation by the scientific committee in the pre-congress phase shall prevail; if these evaluations are also equal, the President of the Congress or, if he/she is a co-author or belongs to the same department as one of the authors, a person delegated by him/her shall be involved.

• The successful candidate will be the first in the ranking list. He/she must sign, by 31 October 2023, the undertaking to carry out the internship by 31 August 2024 and to submit the report referred to in the following paragraph. In the event of non-acceptance of the aforementioned commitments by one or more winners, said winners shall be removed from the ranking list, which shall be updated. The same will happen if one or more of the winners is found to be ineligible for the award due to the lack of one of the requirements (age, membership of the society, first author of the work and presenter at the congress, presence of a co-author affiliated with the companies providing one of the internships) not detected during the selection of the candidates.

• The winner of the competition will be announced during the closing ceremony of the congress and will be put in contact with Prof. Massimo Sartori, director of the Neuromechanical Modeling And Engineering Lab, in order to define the operational procedures for the internship.

• The cash prize of EUR 1500.00 will be used to cover the expenses incurred by the winner during his/her stay at the Neuromechanical Modeling And Engineering Lab of the University of Twente. This prize will be awarded to the winner after this stay. Upon submission of a written request by the winner, two-thirds of the prize may be awarded before the stay.

• Once the internship has been completed, the winner shall submit to the President of the Congress and to the President of SIAMOC a report on the study stay consisting of a critical description of the laboratory or research centre visited and of the activities carried out there. The report, approved by both Presidents, will be presented orally during the national congress following the one of the selection of the intern, during a session duly arranged by to the scientific organisation. It will not, however, be published in the congress proceedings; instead, it will be posted on the Society's website.