In pursuit of its commitment to promote quality research and strengthen research links, particularly among young researchers, MEL organizes its sixth competition for the best PhD theses that have been successfully defended during the period 1st April 2013 to 30th May 2016.

Submissions will be peer-reviewed by the following members of the MEL Editorial Board:

• Michele Acciaro, Kuehne Logistics University (Germany)
• Kenneth Button, George Mason University (USA)
• Young-Tae Chang, Inha University (Korea)
• Kevin Cullinane, University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
• Hercules Haralambides, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
• Jan Hoffmann, UNCTAD (Switzerland)
• Eleftherios Iakovou, Texas A&M University (USA)
• Manolis Kavussanos, Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece)
• Peter Lorange, Lorange Institute of Business Zurich (Switzerland)
• Theo Notteboom, University of Antwerp (Belgium)
• Thanos Pallis, University of the Aegean (Greece)
• Francesco Parola, University of Naples “Parthenope” (Italy)
• Harilaos Psaraftis, Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
• William Sjostrom, National University of Ireland, Cork (Ireland)
• Siri Pettersen Strandenes, Norwegian School of Economics (Norway)
• Zhongzhen Yang, Dalian Maritime University (China)

The Palgrave Macmillan Prize for the best PhD thesis, accompanied by a prize of € 1,000, will be awarded at a ceremony that will take place in August 2016 during the annual conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), in Hamburg (www.iame2016.org). The five short-listed authors are expected to either join the IAME annual conference, to present their work in a special session, or arrange for suitable representatives to present on their behalf (2nd and 3rd prizes may be available too).

Authors should submit an electronic copy of their thesis plus an approximately 6,000-word paper of publishable quality, encapsulating the essence of the thesis (particularly the methodological part). Literature review should be limited to the absolute minimum, i.e. to works that bear directly upon the development of the thesis.

MEL’s Instructions for Authors can be found on the journal’s website. Thesis and paper can be emailed to Professor Michele Acciaro ([email protected]) no later than the 30th of May 2016. Submissions should be accompanied by a letter from the competent university authorities indicating the date the PhD thesis was defended.