1. Purposes
The ICTEAM best thesis award, which is granted yearly, aims at promoting a quality doctoral research within the Institute. The winner of the award will receive an amount of € 2,000. Besides the winning thesis, the selection committee can possibly distinguish one or two other theses to underline their high quality.
2. Procedure
The award is granted each calendar year. Applications are submitted by the candidates themselves. Thesis supervisors who consider that a student performed high quality research are invited to encourage him/her to submit an application. In order to be eligible for the award, applicants must comply with the following requirements : at least one of the co-supervisors must be a member of ICTEAM officially (« membre affecté »), and the PhD thesis must have been publicly defended during the previous calender year.
Complete applications must be submitted by the end of February following the defense year, and the winner will be selected by the end of April.
The ICTEAM Executive Board appoints the selection committee members in order to properly cover the Institute’s research themes. (Co-)Directors of submitted theses may not be members of the selection committee. The jury may decide not to grant the prize.
3. Submissions
Applications should be sent by e-mail to the ICTEAM secretariat by the end of February and should include :
a) The PDF file of the doctoral thesis ;
b) A maximum one-page motivation letter written by the applicant in which he/she states what he/she believes to be the qualities of the thesis and the reasons why he/she should be granted the award ;
c) A short CV (5 pages max.) listing scientific publications by categories (journal papers, book chapters, conference proceedings) as well as patents if relevant ;
d) The thesis report (communicated to the PhD Graduate following the public defense) ;
e) 2 (two) supporting letters from experts outside of UCLouvain, preferably members of the thesis jury. These letters must be sent by the candidate to the secretariat, by e-mail, by mid-March. The secretariat will send the applicant an acknowledgement of receipt for each letter of recommendation received. In the absence of such an acknowledgement of receipt, the letters will be deemed not to have been received, thus rendering the application inadmissible.
4. Quality criteria
The following quality criteria will be used to assess the quality of the candidate’s doctoral research :
- originality of the results and their contribution to knowledge enhancement
- contribution of the thesis to technological progress and/or societal advances
- methodological originality
- candidate’s vision of his/her contribution to aforementioned elements
- pedagogical quality
- impact that the doctoral research may already have on its discipline
These quality criteria will be demonstrated by the recommendation letters, the publication list and their impact, the thesis report, the motivation letter, and of course the quality of the text of the thesis.
5. Announcement of the results
The ICTEAM best thesis award will be granted during a special ceremony being part, in principle, of the ICTEAM Day. The president of the selection committe will present the award and explain the motivations that guided the choice of the selection committee. The results will be immediately announced on the ICTEAM web page. Moreover, in the following days, all candidates will be informed of the results by e-mail.
Regulations approved by the ICTEAM Executive Board on March 3, 2011
Amended on January 28, 2022.