The Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (Citma), in coordination with the Union of Cuban Journalists (Upec), called for the 25th edition of the Gilberto Caballero Science Journalism Contest, the main promoter of its specialised club or circle.

The organising committee of the contest informed at a press conference at the National Aquarium of Cuba that journalists from national, provincial and municipal media can participate with works of any genre, published between 1 January and 31 December 2024, in the categories of written press, radio, television and digital platforms.

He added that only one annual prize will be awarded for each of its modalities, in addition to the mentions that the juries deem fit to confer; and in the case of the Lifetime Achievement award, with a minimum of 30 years of uninterrupted work in the dissemination, analysis and coverage of science, technology and environmental issues.

He underlined the fact that there was a renewal of its original conception, according to which each applicant must present the technical file of his or her material and the endorsement of the president of the Upec grassroots delegation, in a decision that reduced the number of documents.

Radio and TV works must be accompanied by the script, none of the members of the jury can have their own works or those of their relatives, and those who do not comply with these requirements will be disqualified from the competition, whose decision is final.

The deadline for submitting entries is 30 April. In the written press they can be sent in PDF or a memory; in radio, the audio clips by post with their respective scripts; something similar in television; and in digital, their links.

The jury in question will be made up of professionals in each of the specialities described and has the power to recognise, with diplomas or other incentives, the most outstanding institutional communicators in the course of 2024, as well as students of journalism with systematic work in the treatment of specific topics.

The overall awards will be presented on a day between 8 September, International Journalists’ Day, and 7 October, Innovators’ Day, which includes the 45th anniversary of the new Science and Technology Journalism Circle.

Contacts for the Department of Social Communication of the Citma, located at Línea No. 8 between N and O, El Vedado, Plaza de la Revolución, are: 7 8315666; 5 9956536 (Ivianka Lorenzo) and E-mail: sec-dgocia@citma.gob.cu

The constitution of the Círculo de Periodismo Científico, of the Upec, lacks an exact date and is presumed to have occurred in 1980, associated with 18 September of that year, when the joint Cuba-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics space flight began, for a week in the Soyuz 38 spacecraft aboard which Yuri Romanenko and Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez travelled.

The latter became the first Cuban and Latin American pilot-cosmonaut.

Gilberto Caballero Almeida (1941-1996), then of the scientific editorial staff of the Latin American news agency Prensa Latina, was one of the national journalists accredited at the Flight Management Centre near Moscow to cover the flight.

Possibly impacted by that event, he began to promote the initiative to form the Circle of Scientific Journalism, became its founding president, and after his death in 1997, the competition that bears his name was born.