Research:Wikimedia France Research Award

This page documents a completed research project.


Wikimedia France is pleased to announce the first winner of the Wikimedia France Research Award: Can history be open source? Wikipedia and the future of the past


Project summary edit

Wikimedia France is initiating an international research prize to reward the most influential research paper on Wikimedia projects and free knowledge projects in general.

Main objectives :

  • supporting/encouraging research teams working on Wikipedia and free knowledge
  • popularizing scientific research on Wikipedia and free knowledge
  • promoting the Wikimedia Movement

Process edit

Award Event edit

April 2013: online announcement of the winner.

Scientific papers eligibility edit

  • anyone can submit a paper for consideration;
  • papers published between 2003 and 2011;
  • peer-reviewed;
  • available in open access (can be a preprint);
  • understandable by Wikimedia community (with accessible and accurate summary, reasonable length, english version avalaible).

Jury’s roles and duty edit

  • selecting 5 shortlisted papers;
  • ranking papers on this shortlist and have 50% weight in the winner;
  • jury members won’t be allowed to vote for papers they authored or co-authored.

Wikimedia community’s roles edit

  • can submit scientific papers to the jury, according to eligibility criterias;
  • community will vote on shortlisted papers and have 50% weight in the winner.

Prize money and winner promotion edit

The Wikimedia France Research Award prize totals €2,500.

  • The winner (or winning team) can freely allocate this sum, provided it is dedicated to help open knowledge research (e.g. grant to a research lab).
  • The public announcement of the winner is scheduled for March 2013.
    • Before this deadline, the winner is expected to dedicate some time to the production of information for the press release (answering an interview, photo shooting etc..).

Goals and Wikimedia community’s benefits edit

  • Promoting research work on Wikimedia projects;
  • Making shortlisted papers accessible and understandable by the community ; they will be discussed and better known.

Timeline edit

July 1st, 2012

1 August7th August, 2012

  • Papers submission deadline;
  • Jury starts selecting 5 shortlisted papers;

15th September, 2012

  • 5 shortlisted papers chosen by the jury;

February, 2013

March 11th, 2013

  • Closing of votes

End of april, 2013

Funding edit

This project is organized by Wikimedia France and supported by WMF.

Contact edit

  • Rémi Bachelet : remi.bachelet à wikimedia.fr WMFr volunteer, assistant professor at Ecole Centrale de Lille
  • Carol Ann O’Hare : carolann.ohare à wikimedia.fr WMFr staff, head of research and education