UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya/Polytechnic University of Catalonia) announces the 2016 Science Fiction Story Contest.
- The competition is open to authors of unpublished science fiction stories.
- The stories must be written in Catalan, Spanish, English or French. They must be approximately of 70 to 115 pages in length (150,000 and 240,000 characters), typewritten and double-spaced on A4 sixe paper. The manuscripts will not be returned.
- The works may be submitted by post (in duplicate) or by email (a pdf file).
3.1. If the original is sent by post (to Consell Social, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Edifici Til·lers, Jordi Girona, 31, 08034 Barcelona), the author must sign the story with a pseudonym and enclose a sealed envelope containing the following information:
Full name, personal identification number (identity card or similar), telephone number and email address. Members of the UPC community should also write “UPC Member” on the outside of the envelope.
The text UPC Science Fiction Award, the title of the work and the pseudonym of the author must be clearly written on the outside of the envelope.
3.2. If the original is sent by email (to consell.social@upc.edu), the author must sign thestory with a pseudonym and send by post a sealed envelope containing the following information:
Full name, personal identification number (identity card or similar), telephone number and email address. Members of the UPC community should also write “UPC Member” on the outside of the envelope.
The text UPC Science Fiction Award, the title of the work and the pseudonym of the author must be clearly written on the outside of the envelope.
- The deadline for the submission of manuscripts for the 2016 edition is 2 p.m. 15 June, 2016. The decision of the jury, which will be final, will be made public before the end of 2016.
- The jury will be made up of members of the UPC’s teaching and research staff and people from outside the UPC who are involved in science fiction.
- The jury shall award an honorary prize and, if it sees fi t, an honorary special mention. A further honorary mention may also be awarded for the best story submitted by a member of the UPC.
- The competition may be declared vacant.
- By entering the competition, the author guarantees that his/her work is original and that he/she is the sole author, with full indemnity for the UPC in case of breach of this guarantee.
The author will be responsible for registering the work in the Intellectual Property Register and for the consequences arising from not doing so.
- By entering the competition, winning authors authorise the dissemination of their works.
- The prize consists of the publication of the winning story in electronic format by Iniciativa Digital Politècnica in 2015, and the production of printed copies on demand.
The prize implies that the author of the work shall transfer to the UPC exclusive rights over the work for all countries, in Catalan, Spanish, English and French, for a period of one year from the award, including the rights to reproduce, distribute, publicly communicate and transform the work. A year after the award, the publishing rights to the work in electronic format shall cease to be the exclusive property of the UPC.
The UPC shall hold exclusive rights over other formats under the same conditions outlined above, until the electronic version is published. Once the electronic version has been published, the UPC shall hold non-exclusive rights over other formats.
The author shall receive a proportion of the income derived from the rights to the winning story in accordance with the amounts established for authors whose works are published by Iniciativa Digital Politècnica.
The author or authors are obliged to sign any documents that are necessary to formalise the transfer of rights.
- The winning author and holders of any commercial rights over the winning story shall mention the UPC Science Fiction Award organised by the UPC’s Board of Trustees in all public communications regarding the work.
- The participation in the UPC Science Fiction Award 2016 involves the acceptance of its rules.
Barcelona, January 2016
The UPC Award (Premio UPC) was organised for the first time in 1991. Science fiction is the literary genre best suited to a university such as UPC for unifying the concepts of science, technology and literature and introducing students to concepts of fiction that correspond to reality.
| 2014 UPC Award |  | |
| ||
| Prize winners
“El año del gato” (The Year of the Cat), by Roberto Sanhueza, Los Ángeles, Chile
“El crit de les ultracoses” (The Cry of the Ultrathings), by David Ruiz, Vilafant, Girona, Spain
There hasn’t been novels by members of the UPC (UPC mention desert) Composition of the jury
Participation and works mentioned in the records of the jury
“Les souterrains du temps” (The Undergrounds of Time), by Claude Ecken, Béziers, France “Karma 6”, by Francisco Gutierrez Melguizo, Granada, Spain | |
First prizehttp://www.upc.edu/cienciaficcion/premi_upc/angles/presentacio.php
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premio_UPC
Ricardo Manzanaro Arana, a medical doctor and an university professor, is the President of the TerBi/Tertulia de Ciencia Ficción de Bilbao Asociación Vasca de CF, Fantasía y Terror (TerBi Basque Association of SF, Fantasy & Horror) from Bilbao, Spain. Ricardo has published over forty stories in various media and he’s a contributor to EUROPA SF and Amazing Stories.
