Who can submit a video?
Early career professionals (less than 5 years from graduation), graduate students, and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit a 1-2 minute video about their work in the field of mathematics. These videos must focus on explaining to a general audience why the work has important practical applications and how those applications will make a difference. The video should be inspired by the participant’s personal work on the subject, but can include additional details and context as needed.
You do not need to specifically work in the field of mathematics to participate, provided your video focuses on the mathematical aspects of your work.
Employees of the National Academies, members of BMSA, and immediate families or those living in the same household as a National Academies employee or BMSA member are not eligible to enter this competition.
What are the contest rules?
- Videos must be uploaded to YouTube, using #ElevatingMath in the title and description. You must also link to our website nas.edu/ElevatingMath in the description. Videos should be either public or unlisted (not private), and you must select embed options on YouTube so that external sites can embed your submission via YouTube’s embeddable player. If you don’t have access to YouTube, please contact us for help in uploading your video.
- Once the video is uploaded, fill out the submission form and be sure to include the link to your posted video. Once the form is submitted, we will consider your entry final and no other changes are allowed.
- Videos can be the work of an individual or a group, but one person will need to be the lead contact. If a team submission wins a cash prize, the lead contact will receive it and is responsible for distribution.
- A participant cannot be the lead on more than one video submission. However, working on more than one video is acceptable, provided each one has a different lead.
- Videos that aren’t submitted by the deadline, or are posted and then taken down prior to the deadline, are automatically disqualified.
What are the video guidelines?
- Videos must be 1-2 minutes long, including credits.
- International participation is encouraged, but please note that all videos must be in English or include English subtitles.
- If possible, submit videos with at least 1080p resolution.
- If you are using outside source material (figures, video, images, music, etc.) or filming others as part of your video, please read our permission guidelines at the bottom of the page for how to handle this correctly.
- A submission may not contain offensive, libelous, sexually explicit, disparaging or other inappropriate content and may not defame or otherwise violate the rights, copyrights, trademarks, or rights of publicity, privacy, or reputation of any third party. A submission may not contain any material to promote sale of a product or service. Any submission violating these rules will be immediately disqualified.
Guidelines for Permissions
If the material you want to use belongs to someone else (this can include music, images, video clips, etc.), you must have permission from the owner of the material to use it in your video. This means that you either have the express permission of the owner, or that the owner has made the material available under a creative commons license and your use is consistent with the terms of that license.
Each entrant is solely responsible for the information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, tags, and other materials included in the submission, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted. A submission must be original and the entrant must (1) hold all necessary rights to all the materials, images, videos, graphics and information in the submission or (2) have permission from the holder of such rights, or (3) the materials, images, videos, graphics and information in the submission must be in the public domain.
If your friends (or any other people) are going to appear in your video, you must get their permission in writing. If a person who will appear in your video is under the age of 18, you must get written permission from that person’s parent.