In 2018, two new awards have been launched by Nature Research, in partnership with the Estée Lauder Companies, to encourage and promote the work of female researchers and those who have encouraged girls and young women to engage with STEM subjects:

• The Inspiring Science Award celebrates an outstanding early career researcher who self-identifies as female. Nominations have to be made by laboratory heads, department heads or someone else from the candidate's Institute.
• The Innovating Science Award will honour an individual or organisation who has driven initiatives to encourage girls or young women to engage with STEM subjects. Nominations can be made directly by the candidate.

The name of both winners will be released in October. Each will receive up to $10,000 to spend on initiatives linked to the award and free training from Nature Masterclasses and up to $5,200 to support open access publication of their research in a Springer Nature journal for the Inspiring Science Award winner and to support events related to their initiative for the Innovating Science Award winner.

Apply by 11 June. More information about the nominations.

Still hesitating? Read the words of Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of Ada Lovelace Day, co-founder of Open Rights Group and member of the judging panel for those awards:

"The importance of female role models in science cannot be overstated – girls and young women need to see that success is possible for people like them. The Inspiring Science Award will not just recognise excellence amongst women in research – it will also serve to create new role models to encourage girls and young women to consider a career in science.

Ada Lovelace Day highlights the achievements of women in STEM, so I am delighted to be supporting these awards which will improve the visibility of women in science from around the world. An award that takes a global view and looks for nominees of all backgrounds is long overdue. Equality is not a ‘nice to have’ anymore, it is a ‘must have’, because diverse teams produce better results."