The Royal Society of Biology Book Awards celebrate outstanding general biology books as well as textbooks for undergraduates and postgraduates. Authors and publishers of exceptional books in the fields of biology, biosciences and life sciences are now encouraged to submit their work for this year’s prizes.

Each of the three categories will be judged by a panel of experts in their fields; ranging from research scientists and lecturers to authors, editors and broadcasters.

Judges of the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Textbook Prizes will be looking for well written entries that provide a clearly explained summary of the current knowledge and introduce ideas for the future of the research.

The General Biology Book Prize is a much broader category. Books submitted in this category should be accessible, engaging and informative, and written for a non-specialist audience.

In 2015 the winner of the General Biology Book Prize was Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande (Profile Books). The judges said: “Every so often a book comes along that changes the way one views life and in this case, the end of life. No one will be able to read Being Mortal without being affected.”

Last year’s Undergraduate Textbook Prize winner was Principles of Development (5th Edition), by Lewis Wolpert, Cheryll Tickle and Alfonso Martinez Arias (Oxford University Press). The judges said: “Written in an interesting style accessible to undergraduates, the text linked subtopics together with plenty of excellent examples and case studies.”

The Postgraduate Textbook Prize 2015 went to Curating Biocultural Collections, edited by Jan Salick, Katie Konchar and Mark Nesbitt (Kew Publishing). The judges said: “A stunningly visual and engaging book with a crisp, clear and example rich style. It captivates the reader with its breadth of topics and range of examples, cases studies and photographs.”

If you are an author or publisher you can submit entries until Friday 29th April 2016.