NORS PhD Paper Award 2026
Dear NORS-members,
The Norwegian Operations Research Society is pleased to announce a call for nominations for the second edition of its PhD Paper Award. The award aims at recognizing one or more PhD candidates for authoring an outstanding paper related to Operations Research. Papers with contributions to the theory, methodology, application, or practice of Operations Research are equally welcome, subject to satisfy the eligibility criteria below.
To nominate a paper, please follow the steps described in the submission process below, addressing the following email address:
Note the submission deadline is June 30th, 2026.
The nominations will be evaluated by a committee of experts in the field.
Best regards,
Mario Guajardo
Professor in Operations Research
NHH Norwegian School of Economics
NORS PhD Paper Award
The NORS PhD paper award is presented biannually to one or more PhD candidates for authoring an outstanding paper related to the theory and/or application of operations research / management science.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
1) Each nominated paper must be nominated by a NORS member. Self-nominations by a PhD-student are not allowed. In contrast, PhD supervisors or co-supervisors are more than welcome to nominate a paper in which they are co-author with a student.
2) Papers nominated to earlier versions of the prize cannot be nominated again. If the work has been published, either as a working paper or in a journal, the publication date must not be earlier than two years prior to the submission deadline specified in the call for nominations.
3) The main author(s) of the paper must have been a PhD student at a Norwegian institution during (part of) the period since the previous submission deadline for the award*, and cannot have won this award before. Each main author can only be nominated for one paper.
*: The submission deadline of the previous edition of the award was June 30th, 2024. Thus, eligible main authors of the current edition are those who have been a PhD student at a Norwegian institution during any time between 30th June 2024 and 30th June 2026.
SUBMISSION PROCESS
1) A nomination should consist of an email addressing the NORS board (or award committee) to the email address indicated above, enclosing a pdf with the paper, and a brief text that motivates the nomination of the paper. If the nominating member is not the supervisor, then the nomination should also include a letter from the supervisor, supporting the nomination.
2) The letter should mention explicitly which PhD student(s) is relevant to the nomination, and confirming that s/he fulfills the eligibility criteria described above. If the paper is co-authored, a statement about the contribution of each author should also be included.
3) Preferably, adhere to this paper format: 11-point font text, A4 paper size, standard margins, maximum 30 pages. Title, authors and affiliations can be specified in a cover page, so the 30 pages limit applies only to the content of the following sections. 9-point font can be used for references and captions.
4) The paper must be written in English.
ASSESSMENT PROCESS
1) A panel of judges is appointed by the NORS board for each edition of the award. No member of the panel may be a co-author in a nominated paper.
2) Assessment criteria include: (i) Context/Problem description; (ii) Methodology/Solution approach; (iii) Results/Impact; (iv) Relevance to OR and related fields, and in general to decision-making; (v) Manuscript organization and structure and quality of writing.
