We are pleased to announce the first edition of Best Romanian AI Thesis Awards, in partnership with ARIA. The competition is intended for recent graduates whose bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral theses are in the artificial intelligence field.

Our goal is to inspire students to pursue a career in artificial intelligence, by supporting their research ideas and promoting a culture of competition and excellence in higher education.

The competition will have 3 tracks:

• Best Bachelor's Thesis

• Best Master's Thesis 

• Best PhD Thesis 

The winner of each track will earn a prize of 2000 euros and a scholarship for participating at the Eastern European Machine Learning Summer School 2025. The scholarship will cover registration costs, accommodation, and travel fees.

Winners will be selected following a two-round evaluation process:

• Submission and initial evaluation round 

- Reviewers will select the best works for each of the 3 tracks, based on the submitted documents 

• Onsite poster session and final evaluation round 

- The participants selected in the submission and initial evaluation round will be invited to physically attend the Romanian AI Days event (September 26-27, 2024 - Bucharest Romania) and present their work as a poster

Travel grant: if you are selected for the onsite evaluation round of the competition and you need financial support for attending the Romanian AI Days event, we will offer full or partial travel grants.

Call for reviewers: This contest is made possible by the efforts of a lot of people. We invite people in academia and industry to serve as reviewers. To do so, please complete the following form https://forms.gle/YdjjPLhZaTekSwY58 

Eligibility criteria

Participants must fulfil the following criteria:

• Have a Bachelor's / Master's / PhD thesis in the field of Artificial Intelligence 

• Successfully defended the submitted thesis between January 1, 2023 and July 31, 2024

• The Bachelor's / Master's / PhD studies must have been carried out within a higher education institution in Romania, either as a       full-time or visiting student (e.g., Erasmus)

COMPETITION CALENDAR

• Submission and initial evaluation round: 

  • April 1, 2024 00:00 - May 15, 2024 23:59 GMT+2 (Romania Time) - Submission Phase 1 

    • • • • • • • submission is open for Bachelor's / Master's / PhD theses defended between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023

                • submission link: https://openreview.net/group?id=AIRomania.eu/BRAIT/2024/Phase_1 

  • July 15, 2024 00:00 - July 31, 2024 23:59 GMT+2 (Romania Time) - Submission Phase 2 

    • • • • • • • submission is open for Bachelor's / Master's / PhD theses defended between January 1, 2024 and July 31, 2024

  • September 5, 2024 - initial decisions released to authors  

    • • • • • • •  we will announce the participants selected for the onsite evaluation round of the competition. The selected participants will prepare a scientific poster to be presented during the Romanian AI Days event.

• Onsite poster session and final evaluation round:

  •  September 26-27, 2024 - Romanian AI Days 2024

    • • • • • • • poster session takes place and the final winners are announced 

Note: all candidates, regardless of which submission phase they entered the competition, will be assessed together during the evaluation process.

Warning: Registration is through OpenReview. If you register using a non-institutional email, it may take up to 2 weeks for your OpenReview account to be activated. Make sure you meet the competition deadline.

Application process

To enter the competition, participants should submit the following documents :

• Short paper (4 pages) covering the main contributions of the thesis - anonymized 

• Bachelor's / Master's / PhD thesis - anonymized

Please use the following link to register:

• Submission Phase 1: https://openreview.net/group?id=AIRomania.eu/BRAIT/2024/Phase_1 

Note: Submitted documents and reviews will not be public. If the participants agree, we will only publish the short papers selected for the onsite evaluation round on the competition website.

Warning: Registration is through OpenReview. If you register using a non-institutional email, it may take up to 2 weeks for your OpenReview account to be activated. Make sure you meet the competition deadline.

The reviewers will primarily assess participants based on the short paper, although they may also consult the thesis for cross-referencing and additional details. The review process will be double-blind, ensuring anonymity between reviewers and authors. Both the short papers and theses must be anonymized and authors should refrain from explicitly citing their previous works or sharing links that could reveal their identity or affiliation. While fully anonymizing an entire thesis is challenging and labour-intensive, authors will not be penalised for any inadvertent violations of the double-blind reviewing policy, such as including references to authors' previously published works within the thesis.

Students selected for the onsite evaluation round will additionally be required to prepare a scientific poster and present it during the poster session at Romanian AI Days 2024. The final winners will be announced at the Romanian AI Days 2024 event. 

Short paper instructions

• a short paper consists of 4 pages (excluding the bibliography) and follows the structure of a scientific paper (for details see short_paper_structure_guidelines.pdf listed below)

• you can find some examples here paper1, paper2, paper3, paper4, paper5

• the short paper should be written in English and follow the format illustrated in short_paper_style_guidelines.tex / short_paper_style_guidelines.pdf listed below 

• please send a .pdf file of at most 50MB

• the short paper will be anonymized: no references to the institution, author name, advisor name, previous works, etc.  (check short_paper_style_guidelines.pdf for details)

• you should follow the style and structure indicated in this template (it is not mandatory to use LaTeX):

  • best_roai_thesis_awards_2024.sty - style file for LaTeX

  • references.bib - bibliography example

  • short_paper_style_guidelines.tex - LaTeX template illustrating the style requirements (short_paper_style_guidelines.pdf)

  • short_paper_structure_guidelines.tex - LaTex template illustrating the structure of a short paper (short_paper_structure_guidelines.pdf)

  • if you choose LaTeX, we recommend Overleaf for writing your paper (simply load the content of the template archive in a new project)

Thesis instructions

• may be written in any language and format provided it respects the guidelines of the institution where the thesis is presented

• please send a .pdf file of at most 200MB  

• the theses will be anonymized: please remove, as much as possible, references to the institution, author name, advisor name, previous works etc.

Poster instructions

• a poster combines text and visual elements (e.g., figures, tables) to present the scientific contributions in a concise and visually appealing way (https://guides.nyu.edu/posters) 

• you can find some examples here poster1, poster2, poster3, poster4, poster5

Evaluation criteria 

Contribution

• novelty and creativity of the proposed solution

• efficiency of the implementation 

• extent of tool development setting up the experimentation pipeline (data collection, data cleaning, dataset creation, evaluation and reporting)

• significance of findings and their potential impact in both theory and practice

• potential to bridge gaps between different disciplines

Soundness

• depth and/or breadth of the research questions investigated

• soundness and precision of the conducted theoretical and experimental analysis

• proper and coherent justification for the choice of used AI/ML engineering frameworks and tools

Clarity and coherence

• well-organised structure, clear writing, and effective communication of ideas

Evaluation committee

The evaluation committee will consist of Artificial Intelligence experts from both academia and industry. 

Details coming soon

Organisers

SPONSORS

If you are interested in sponsoring the awards or the event in general , please get in touch at contact at airomania dot eu to learn about the benefits for sponsors. 

CONTACT

For any questions please get in touch at contact at airomania dot eu 

FAQ

1. Am I eligible to participate If I carried out my studies outside Romania but participated in an exchange program (e.g., Erasmus) in Romania?

Yes, If the thesis was developed during the exchange program.

2. Am I eligible to participate If I carried out my studies in Romania but did an exchange program abroad at some point?

Yes, regardless if the thesis was developed during the exchange or not.