1. Description of the award

This award is given biannually to graduate students (age less than 30 years on 1 July 2022) working in the area of Classification, Clustering and related topics who submit, as first author, papers to this competition. The paper is meant to be largely the work of the student/Postdoctoral Fellow. The paper should involve original methodological research, or a novel application, or a software, related to some aspect of Classification, Clustering, Data Science and related topics. The winners are invited to present their papers at a special junior research session of the IFCS and invited to submit their paper to ADAC or JOC for possible publication. The IFCS will offer a grant towards their attendance expenses, conference fees and the local/university hotel.

2. Applicability and disbursement of the award

Awards: $200 travel reimbursement for winners in the same continent of the IFCS conference and $600 otherwise, plus certificate (up to two awards).

Applicability: The number of awards should not depend on the number of applications, just on quality.

Disbursement of the award: It is compulsory that a candidate who has been selected for an award attends the IFCS conference and presents a paper in a scientific session. Under this condition, the IFCS Treasurer (or a designated representative by the President of IFCS) shall pay the award and give a certificate to the winners during the ceremony for awards of the IFCS Conference.

3. Application for the award

The competition candidates must submit a paper to the IFCS conference. The young researcher has to provide:

• an application form with his/her name and contact details; the candidate’s name and contact details;

• a reference letter of no longer than few lines 11pt text and the name and contact details of a referee who will provide the report on the paper (at maximum 1500 characters, spaces not included) in the due time (please note that if the report will not arrive in time, the candidate will be excluded from the competition);

• a CV of the candidate with information according to the provided template (CV template).

4. Criteria of the evaluation

Originality of research, impact of research, quality of publications, innovation.

5. Required information

• the candidate's name and date of birth;

• contact details of the candidate (address, phone, e-mail);

• the candidate's memberships in IFCS Member Societies;

• the location from which the candidate would travel to the conference;

• the candidate's experience, expertise or education in classification, data analysis and related areas and contributions to these domains including any publications (with full references);

• the title of the paper submitted by the candidate at the conference.