Best Dissertation Award

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The Informatics Europe Best Dissertation Award (BDA) is granted annually for an excellent PhD dissertation in Informatics, endorsed by one of the members of Informatics Europe. The Award aims to recognise and encourage emerging researchers while promoting excellence in research within the Informatics Europe community and beyond.

Each year the Award Committee will select the winner based on the following criteria:

Innovative research and methodology
Impact and quality of results
Societal relevance
Clarity and quality of exposition

Should more than one dissertation reach an equivalent top score, the one with the highest societal impact score will be selected.

Sponsored by Springer, the Award includes a EUR 3,000 prize, an Award plaque, and an exclusive invitation to publish the dissertation in a dedicated Springer series.

The Award Committee reserves the right to award two candidates as winners and consequently split the monetary prize between them. To expand the reach of excellent dissertations, should the winning dissertation be already published with an ISBN or under copyright protection, the Award Committee will extend the publishing invitation to the best unpublished dissertation submitted.

The 2026 Official Award Ceremony will take place during the annual European Informatics Leaders Summit (ECSS 2026, Porto, Portugal). The Award winner(s) will receive financial support to attend the Summit. Noteworthy runners-up or finalists may also be recognised and invited to join the Award ceremony.

The Award Committee, partially renewed every year, is composed of a subset of the Board of Directors of Informatics Europe. In case a PhD dissertation is submitted from an institution that the Award Committee member currently belongs to, the Committee member from that institution will not participate in the discussion and the voting of that particular submission.

Key Dates

Extended Submission Deadline: 8 June 2026
Notification of results to candidates: late Aug/early Sep 2026
Award ceremony: 26 October 2026

The Award winner(s) will be invited to give a brief talk on their dissertation during the Award ceremony.

How to Submit

Submission for the 2026 Award is now closed. Thank you for your interest!

2026 Award Committee

Ernestina Menasalvas, Technical University of Madrid, Spain (Chair)
Přemek Brada, University of West Bohemia, Czechia
Timo Kehrer, University of Bern, Switzerland
Gabriella Pasi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Heri Ramampiaro, NTNU, Norway

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Award nominations can our university submit?

Each university department can submit only one nomination to the Award. Only nominations endorsed by Informatics Europe member institutions will be considered. In the case of multiple submissions from the same institution, we reserve the right to consider only the first nomination received or to disqualify all nominations from that institution.

Our university is not a member of Informatics Europe, or we have multiple outstanding candidates. What are our options?

Only PhDs nominated by Informatics Europe member institutions are eligible. Not a member yet? Join us and be part of Europe’s leading Informatics community!

If your department belongs to one of our member National Informatics Associations (full list here), you may request an endorsement from the association. However, each member association may endorse only one candidate.

Our department belongs to a federated member of Informatics Europe. Can we submit more than one Award nomination?

A federated member represents a group of up to five small academic or research institutions holding a single vote and is entitled to only one nomination for the Award.

My dissertation has already been published. Am I still eligible for the Award nomination?

Yes, your dissertation remains eligible for the Award. If selected as the winner, you will receive the EUR 3,000 prize or share it if there are multiple winners. You will also be invited to publish the dissertation in a dedicated Springer Series if it has not been published with an ISBN or under copyright protection. Otherwise, the invitation to publish in a dedicated Springer series will be granted to the best unpublished dissertation submitted, as determined by the Award Committee, without an additional monetary prize.

Further Inquires

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