Competition Rules

  1. You must submit an Entry Form (which includes a required Copyright License Agreement) before you can submit a cartoon.  The deadline for submitting an Entry Form is November 4, 2022, at 5:00 pm central time.  Entries that are lost, late, misdirected, or incomplete, for any reason including hardware, software, or browser malfunctions, are not the responsibility of the Morgridge Institute for Research, Inc. (“Morgridge Institute”) and they will not be considered.
  2. The deadline for submitting a cartoon is December 5, 2022, at 5:00 pm central time. Submissions that are lost, late, misdirected, or incomplete, for any reason including hardware, software, or browser malfunctions, are not the responsibility of the Morgridge Institute and will not be considered.
  3. Your cartoon must be an original creation and you must be its sole author or a co-author.  You may work with a partner if you choose (see paragraph 5 below).  Your cartoon cannot have been published or displayed elsewhere (e.g., personal blog) prior to its entry into the competition.
  4. You are eligible to participate if:
    1. You work in a field of biomedical research, including any biological or medical science, biomedical engineering (including imaging), bioinformatics, biostatistics, computational biology, or a related field.
    2. You are
      1. A postdoctoral fellow at the Morgridge Institute; or
      2. A graduate student, professional student (e.g., medical or graduate nursing student), or postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (“UW”), the UW Hospitals and Clinics, or any UW-affiliated biomedical research center or institute; or
      3. A laboratory technician, assistant or associate scientist, or other individual with a comparable job title who (a) works in a biomedical research group; and (b) is NOT an undergraduate, a UW faculty member, a Morgridge Principal Investigator, or a Principal Investigator on a state or federal biomedical research grant for faculty or senior investigators, such as an R01 award from NIH.
    3. If you have previously won first prize in a Morgridge Ethics Cartooning competition, you can participate but cannot win a cash prize (i.e., you cannot win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place).
The Morgridge Institute will determine your eligibility in its sole discretion.

If you have any questions about your eligibility to participate, please contact us at ethics@morgridge.org or call 608-316-4400.

  1. You may work individually or with a partner in a two-person team. Both team members should meet the eligibility criteria stated in Rule 4 above. If you plan to work in a team, each team member must complete and submit a separate entry form.
  2. Your cartoon may contain one to six panel(s), with no more than four panels in a row. You may produce the cartoon using any method or medium (e.g., painted or drawn on paper or drawn on a computer/tablet) but your cartoon must be submitted as a digital image using one of the following formats: .tif, .jpg, .png, or .pdf. The images must be high resolution (at least 300 dpi), and the width should be at least 1200 pixels (with output size of 4 inches). We will not accept animations or videos.
  3. Images should be submitted by uploading them to morgridge.org/cartooncontest.
  4. Submissions are limited to one image per artist or two-person team.
  5. A panel of judges will evaluate submitted cartoons according to the following criteria: a) depiction and analysis of a research ethics issue (see some examples of research ethics topics); b) humor; and c) artistry. Artistry refers to the manner in which your imagery advances your idea; scoring well in this category does not require you to be a skilled artist. Based on the judge’s votes, the highest ranked cartoons (not fewer than 15) will be displayed on a website for a period of public voting. After public voting is closed, the Morgridge Institute will choose first, second, and third place winners based on rankings by both the judges and valid public votes.
  6. Employees of the Office of the Ethics Scholar-in-Residence at the Morgridge Institute may not vote during the public voting. Any other natural person may vote. Each person is allowed one vote. Use of automated processes or bots for voting is not allowed, and may result in an entrant’s disqualification, at the Morgridge Institute’s sole discretion.
  7. The Morgridge Institute, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person tampering with an entry or with the voting process, or who otherwise violates the competition rules.
  8. The Morgridge Institute, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any cartoon that it concludes might be libelous, that could otherwise subject the Morgridge Institute to liability, or that violates the Morgridge Institute’s editorial policies.
  9. The Morgridge Institute, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to interpret the rules of this contest and such interpretation shall be binding on all participants. The Morgridge Institute’s decisions in all matters regarding the competition are final and binding.
  10. The Morgridge Institute reserves the right to cancel, terminate, or modify the competition if it is not capable of being completed as planned.
  11. This competition is subject to all federal, state, and local laws. Void where prohibited.