IPC members and IPC governing board members, sport technical committees and IPC standing committees and councils can all submit nominations for the winner of the award, which will presented at next May's VISTA Conference in Bonn, Germany.

"The IPC Scientific Award allows the  Paralympic community to honour someone who has made great strides in helping us further expand the knowledge behind the science of Paralympic sport and encourages further studies in this area," Peter Van de Vliet, the IPC's medical and scientific director, said.

Lucas van der Woude (pictured top), Professor at the Centre of Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen's Medical Centre in the Netherlands, won the last edition of the award in September 2011 for his work on the restoration of mobility during the rehabilitation of patients with spinal-cord injuries.

He organised four different congresses in Amsterdam to bring together research and had worked on optimising manual wheelchair propulsion, both in the general wheelchair population and among athletes.

Nominations for the award must be submitted by February 1 2013 and more information can be found here.

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