AGU’s 2026 Journalism Awards are now open

Nominate your or your peers’ best Earth and space science reporting by 19 April 2026

1 April 2026

AGU contact:
Liza Lester, [email protected]

Deadline:
Sunday, 19 April at 11:59 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — AGU is now accepting nominations for its 2026 Journalism Awards, which honor outstanding reporting on the Earth and space sciences published in the previous year (1 January – 31 December 2025). The deadline is Sunday, 19 April 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

This year, AGU will present two awards; brief descriptions of each award are below and full descriptions are linked. Submissions may either be self-nominations or nominations of another individual’s work. Nominees do not need to be AGU members to submit their work and there is no submission fee. Awardees receive a plaque, a $5,000 prize and $1,000 in reimbursed costs to attend AGU’s 2026 Annual Meeting, held December 15-19 in San Francisco.

The News and Features awards recognize reporting that brings timely information or concepts about the Earth and space sciences to the public’s attention, identifies and corrects misconceptions about AGU sciences or makes the science AGU represents accessible and interesting to general audiences without sacrificing accuracy. Stories must focus on the science of one of AGU’s disciplines; any policy stories must include a substantial discussion of the science behind the policy.

Stories published in Eos are ineligible, opinion pieces are ineligible, and AGU does not currently offer an award for institutional science writing.

Submissions to both awards can be made through this link. Instructions on navigating the submission process are below.

David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—News, recognizing excellence in science news reporting, produced under deadline pressure.
Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—Features, recognizing excellence in science feature reporting.

Please email the Media Relations team at [email protected] if you have any questions about the process or a particular story’s eligibility. We look forward to once again honoring the outstanding work produced by the science journalism community!

Changes to submission requirements for 2026

In 2026, the News (Perlman) award will no longer be limited to stories prepared with a deadline of one week or less. The Perlman is designed to reward breaking news reporting, however, so the committee may consider the timeliness and deadline pressure of the reportering, whether the story was published before similar stories from other media outlets, as well as whether it contains information of exceptional originality, importance, or surprise.

For both the News and Features awards, submissions should be text-based. Multimedia such as photographs, infographics, data visualizations, illustrations, audio and video may be included if the creators of the multimedia elements are also nominated. Scripts or transcripts must be submitted for audio and video content.

Instructions for using the nomination system

To submit a nomination, visit the journalism awards nomination system home page. Before you can submit a nomination, you will need to log in to the system by clicking the “Log in here” button on the left-hand side of the screen.

You will then be directed to a login screen. You will need to log in to the system using your AGU account. If you do not have an AGU account, you will need to create one by selecting “Sign me up as a new user” and filling out the required information (If your organization is not listed or can’t be found, please enter “Organization Not Listed” in the “Organization Name” field and fill out the “Suggest Your Organization” field with the name of your organization).

After logging in, you will see the home page for the journalism awards. To submit a nomination, click on the text “Click here to submit a nomination.”

On the nomination form page, please first select the award for which you are entering a submission (News or Features) using the dropdown “Category” menu.

Fill out the nomination form. When you have completed the nomination form, you can “Save” the nomination to come back to later, or “Save and Finalize” to submit the nomination. If you discover an error after submitting, email [email protected].

You can access saved nominations using the “In Progress” tab under “My Nominations” on the left-hand side of the screen. Click “Edit” to edit the nomination or “Remove” to delete the nomination.

You can access submitted nominations under the “Complete” tab under “My Nominations” on the left-hand side of the screen.

To submit an additional nomination, click the “Submit” button on the top navigation bar. A nominee may submit only one entry for the News (Perlman) and Features (Sullivan) awards in a given year (i.e., one entry for News and one entry for Features).

AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million professionals and advocates in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.