Nominations are invited for the 2025 Artificial Intelligence Dissertation Award sponsored by EurAI, the European Association of Artificial Intelligence. The award recognises superior research and writing by doctoral candidates in artificial intelligence.
Please take a moment to nominate your students or recommend that your colleagues nominate them.

This award includes a certificate signed by the EurAI President and 1,500€.
Nominations are due by April 14th, 2026, by submitting a single PDF file as described below, listing both the NOMINATOR and the CANDIDATE NOMINATED through this link on Chairing Tool

• Eligible doctoral theses are those defended between 01 December 2024 and 31 December 2025, inclusive, in the general area of Artificial Intelligence.
• The candidate nominated must have defended the dissertation at a European university.
• The candidate nominated must be a personal member of a EurAI member society.
• If a thesis is nominated for another national or international award before or during its evaluation for the EurAI Dissertation Award, the nominator must inform the EurAI Dissertation Award Committee about this fact.
• Furthermore, if a doctoral thesis has received a national AI dissertation award granted by a EurAI member society within the eligibility period, that thesis will be considered the sole eligible submission from that national AI association for the corresponding EurAI Dissertation Award cycle.
• Finally, if a EurAI member association nominates an unusually high number of dissertations for the award, EurAI may ask that association for assistance in narrowing down the set of nominations.

To be considered, a dissertation must be nominated by the thesis supervisor, who must submit the following items as a single PDF file in the order:

• Nomination cover page that includes the name, affiliation, and contact details of the nominator; the date of the defence of the dissertation; and the names of the jury/examiners involved in its defence.
• Two nomination letters, either digitally signed or scanned originals, from referees who support the submission and explain why the thesis deserves the award.
• If the candidate did not write the thesis in English, the nomination must include an English paper describing the core ideas of the thesis submitted for publication in an international journal or a prestigious conference.
• An official declaration of the candidate's membership in an EurAI member society (usually, a letter of membership).
• A copy of the PhD Award certificate from a national AI Association, if applicable.
• Other information that the nominator considers relevant about the candidate (H-index; Number of Patents; If candidate has a new postdoctoral position; Number of papers where the candidate is first author and Number of journal Papers, etc.)
• The complete nominated dissertation.

The selection will be based on the work's originality, impact, and written quality. Work that has been submitted to and/or accepted at workshops, conferences, or journals will be considered more favourably. Work that is primarily attributed to the candidate's initiative will also be considered more favourably. Finally, the committee will consider the quality of the written document. The jury may select another PhD thesis and award a Diploma on special occasions. The jury's decision is final.

The winner of the EurAI Dissertation Award will be announced by mid-June 2026.
The award will be presented during IJCAI-ECAI 2026, with the winner invited to give a talk.
Note that this year, the submission deadline and the announcement have been moved earlier due to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 being in mid-August.

Please address any queries to Amanda Figueras at executive-secretary@eurai.org