The audience of our journal is interested to know why you chose Alexander A. Maximow as the eponym of this award?

• The Russian histologist and pathologist Alexander A. Maximow (1874–1928) studied medicine in Saint Petersburg (Russia) and in Freiburg and Berlin (Germany). In 1909 he formulated the concept of the hematopoietic “stem cell” in a groundbreaking presentation held in German at the "Berliner Hämatologische Gesellschaft" (Berlin Hematological Society). This contest is named after A. Maximow because no better eponym could have been chosen to represent a bilateral project which aims to support young scientists from Germany and Russia under the motto "Research Without Borders". Furthermore, CTT has a connection to him as an author: in 2009 the CTT team produced the first-ever published English translation of his 1909 landmark article. Thanks to the journal policy of CTT, this article is now also available in Russian. Both versions as well as the original in German are today available open access in the [Maximow Centenary edition, CTT No. 3 (2009) [http://www.ctt-journal.com/contents_vol1_no3.html].

• What is the purpose of the competition?
  We think that showing new opportunities to the younger generation of researchers means contributing to the wellbeing of a scientific community. If young scientists know their way around the Web, they are likely to use up-to-date technology for good networking about their research results. This contest aims to help bring down any barriers to such a vision of networking.

• Why was the competition designed for young researchers?
  Young scientists do not often experience real opportunities for funding that enable them to take part in meetings or exchange programs. Moreover, by working in teams with senior colleagues they do not always have the chance to demonstrate their particular contribution. This competition is designed to encourage young scientists to make their personal contribution visible by discussing their ideas in a forum with other young colleagues, prior to the submission of a scientific report. Next, successful contributions can be published under their own names, of course, and the prizewinners are invited to take part in an important international meeting.

• Participants from which countries were eligible to take part in the competition?
  Any scientist with a Russian or German background who on entry was no more than 35 years of age is eligible for this award. In the running phase, everyone with access to the Web can take part but the prizewinners, again, must be no older than 35 years of age.

• Does this contest have any official language?
  Official announcements promoting the bilateral contest were available in three languages: Russian, German, and English. The forum debate, which started on October 15, was anonymous, and took place in three forums. Participants could register in one or more groups and debate in any of the three languages. The purpose was to bring down any barriers: that’s why the forum helpline was available in the three languages of the competition, too. As one component of the prize was the publication in the CTT Journal, the Short Report was to be submitted in English, but copy-editing was provided to every participant. This opportunity was greatly appreciated.

• So, the contest for the Maximow Award is running in different phases, what are the steps involved?
  The Maximow Award consists of two phases. After its announcement in St Petersburg in September 2011, during the 5th Raisa Gorbacheva Memorial Meeting on Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Children and Adults, this bilateral cooperation started on October 1st 2011, with discussions opening on each of the 14 topics of the contest. For this, an online forum was used, hosted by CTT journal. After anonymous login, participants chose freely the topics they wished to discuss with their fellow researchers. An international moderation team provided some support. This is the model for both phases of the award.
  The first part of phase I closed on the 7th of November, when real identities were revealed to the other forum members so that forum colleagues could reference real names in any acknowledgements when uploading their contributions for Jury review. The moderation team was responsible for allotting points for postings made. By November 20, participants who had accumulated 10 points or more during this discussion were eligible to submit their contributions as Short Reports or Short Reviews. In this way, participants could acquaint themselves with some standard guidelines of international scientific publication. By this time, CTT Editors-in-Chief had invited eminent scientists to form an international Jury for each of the 14 topics. The names of the Jury members were made known to the participants before upload was due. On the 10th of December 2011, three prizewinning contributions were announced to all participants, via the CTT newsletter and on the Maximow Award website. Phase I ended successfully.
  We are now in the early days of phase II, where submissions are made available for open peer review. It is the most innovative aspect of this competition and we are looking forward to seeing what young scientists and their colleagues might find interesting and useful about this option. In this phase, there will be four more prizes to win (in terms of money), and of course a lot of new experiences can be won, too, for both authors and reviewers. On January 22 2012, Alexander A. Maximow’s birthday, phase II will come to a close and possibly four additional winners will be announced. We may say that the competition is designed to give a first and a second opportunity to win a prize; and many opportunities to win new experiences. The aim is to give an incentive to share knowledge openly on the Web and to enter an international network of experts with the optimistic vision of practicing science without borders, by actively bringing down as many barriers as possible.

• What was the focus in phase I?
  The participants were asked to discuss [14 topics [http://www.ctt-journal.com/maximow-award-2011-topics.html]], which had been suggested by a team of experts. The aim of this first debate was to encourage young scientists to come up with new ideas and approaches in stem cell research and maybe to reflect on possible implications for clinical work. Participants could work on any number of topics and gain 0–3 points for each online contribution, at the discretion of the moderator team. Participants and teams who accumulated 10 points during the discussion phase were asked to upload their Short Reports or Review Essays on any of the competition topics.

• At the end of phase I, contributions were sent in for peer review by the jury. Which submissions were considered best?
  The main winners of the Alexander A. Maximow Award 2011/2012 phase I are Ilya Ya. Bozo (position 1) for the Short Review "Restoration of bone marrow niches is the basis of optimization of HSC engraftment"; Sergey A. Sergeev und Ylia V. Khramova (position 2) for the contribution "In vitro models for stem cell transplantation"; and Konstantin G. Shevchenko (position 3) for the Short Report "Selected issues of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene and cell therapy”. These contributions showed excellent scientific approaches and discussion. Their quality is a good benchmark for any continuation of the Award.

• How was the jury formed? Who were the jury members in phase I?
  The Maximow Award was supported by well-known scientists who agreed to contribute in phase I by reviewing the contributions submitted and form the Jury, among them Prof. Dr. Boris V. Afanasyev, St. Petersburg, Dr. Alexey B. Chukhlovin, St. Petersburg, Dr. Roman V. Deev, Moscow, Prof. Dr. Boris Fehse, Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Hans-Jochem Kolb, Munich, Prof. Dr. Igor A. Lisukov, St. Petersburg, Prof. Dr. Axel R. Zander, Hamburg. The CTT editors-in-chief found these Jury members by asking around among their international colleagues.

• How would you describe the winning research of young scientists?
  Ilya Ya. Bozo’s essay deals with a crucial problem of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation, namely efficient engraftment of the donor's blood stem cells in the new milieu of the recipient. Particularly, he directs our attention to the important role of the bone marrow niche. His essay tries to systemize fundamental and current data on HSC engraftment and the causes of its low level in allogeneic transplantation. Also, he discusses novel trends in optimizing HSC engraftment, particularly relying on own data.
  The essay of Sergey A. Sergeev and Ylia V. Khramova is devoted to the use of different types of adult stem cells (SC) in regenerative medicine. As the authors note, despite the broad clinical use of SC it is still very difficult to predict the actual effects of transplanted adult SC in vivo. In fact, many questions on SC behaviour in recipient tissue remain open, e.g.
  about the communication of transplanted cells with recipient tissue, the processes of functional contact development and the mechanisms of the new microenvironment on transplanted cells. To address these questions, the authors suppose the use of adapted ex vivo models that allow studying individual cell behaviour. To do so, they developed and applied 3D rat retina and organotyping explant culture models.

• By what criteria were the submissions evaluated?
  The review criteria were the same as for any article that is accepted for peer review in CTT. These [reviewing guidelines [http://www.ctt-journal.com/guidelines.html]] are available on CTT's website. The forum participants were informed about these criteria as well as the prospective Jury members in advance. The winners were rewarded because their short reports were based on a very good discussion and on sub-data from a larger study, the presentation was good and their works were appreciated for the important or interesting experimental concept/approach. A short report was disqualified because it had been largely copy-pasted from a published article. Other submissions were judged to be limited in originality and literature.

• What prizes do winners receive?
  The monetary part of the award in phase I of this year's competition is 800, 700, and 600 EUR for the first three positions respectively. With this prize also goes an invitation to take part in the prestigious [Wilsede Meeting, 16–20 June 2012 [http://www.wilsede-meeting.com]]. These three as well as three more submissions that were also considered very good by the Jury have been published or will soon be open-access published in CTT. Because of this, all six winning short contributions are taking part in phase II and may also win other experts' attention through open peer review.

• During the competition, which drawbacks and weaknesses became apparent?
  Innovative projects usually attract "early adopters" first. Because the Maximow Award came in a highly innovative shape (on the web only, including a mandatory forum discussion, in two phases, in three languages), it was clear that this would be a rather experimental method for a scientific contest. From the beginning, the competition seemed to attract rather more Russian scientists. The announcement of an invitation to an international meeting in Germany for the winners was surely very attractive for them. The bilateral geometry of the competition was assured due to the multinational provenance of the Jury members and of the scientists involved in the open peer review phase.

• What is "open access"? What is the importance of open access for EU countries?
  Let us start with an example. CTT has recently been highly praised for its author license policy: In terms of "articulating the commons" CTT ranges top, says Heather Morrison, according to her recent international review article [Journals with good creative commons models [http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2011/12/journals-with-good-creative-commons.html]], 26 Dec 2011. This is how CTT Managing Editor Claudia Koltzenburg thinks that scientific publishers act best: Keep the copyright where it belongs, allowing author teams to decide if they want to place their article elsewhere, too, e.g., as a full-text reference on their lab's website. In this way, CTT articles are open access in legal terms.
  Mostly, however, "open access to the peer-reviewed research literature" means that articles are available without pay for any web user. All CTT articles are also open access in this sense.
  As for the official EU policy, please refer to the following recent documents: [New EU consultation on open access to scientific information (July 2011) [http://blog.okfn.org/2011/07/18/new-eu-consultation-on-open-access-to-scientific-information/ ]], [Nellie Kroes, the EU Commission's Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, 12 Dec 2011: European Commission launches Open Data Strategy for Europe, report by Jonathan Gray from the Open Knowledge Foundation [http://blog.okfn.org/2011/12/12/european-commission-launches-open-data-strategy-for-europe/]], [Paving the way to an open scientific information space: OpenAIREplus – linking peer-reviewed literature to associated data, 15 December 2011 [http://www.openaire.eu/en/component/content/article/76-highlights/326-openaireplus-press-release]], and [European Commission: National Open Access and Preservation Policies in Europe. Analysis of a questionnaire to the European Research Area Committee. Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Directorate B – European Research Area, Unit B.6 – Ethics and gender [http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/open-access-report-2011_en.pdf ]] From the summary by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science: "This report gives an overview of how open access is developing in the European Research Area. It is based on a survey conducted via the European Research Area Committee. It shows that open access is backed by a growing number of universities, research centers and funding agencies across Europe, and it highlights the dynamic growth of open access. It also underlines, however, that national initiatives and practices are still fragmented, thus preventing the European Union from realising its full research and innovation potential".

• Who are the people behind the day-to-day management of the Maximow Award?
  We are a specially formed team of nine and none of us works full-time on this project. The concept comes from Claudia Koltzenburg, Managing Editor of CTT, who hired new team members as soon as the good news about the successful funding application came in; Cinzia Colazzo, from Italy, Education Science Advisor, and 5 others. Our scientific colleagues in the moderation team are Alexey Bersenev, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, USA, and well-known blogger, and Max Christopeit who is currently working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Cell Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.
  We all work web-based wherever we may happen to be: Australia, Scotland, Russia, Italy, Germany, and the US. The main web tool is a wiki platform plus a calendar function. Our activity goes on around the clock and everyone may choose his/her best working hours. So, as you can see, our motto is "project management and web cooperation without borders".

• What are your expectations for the Maximow Award 2012/2013?
  We expect to offer another opportunity to promote acceptance of open science features. We seek to learn more about how openness on the web may be used in day-to-day scientific work across the globe.
  - Thank you very much for this interview.
  - It was our pleasure.

The conversation had Roman Deev.