Best Student Paper Competition

Submission deadline: November 1, 2026

Eligibility Requirements and Author Guidelines

  1. Competition participants must have student status on or after January 1, 2027. The paper must be led by the student and, if selected as a finalist, presented by the student during the conference. Each participant may submit only one entry and must register for the conference by December 1, 2026. Failure to register may result in loss of eligibility.
  2. The paper must fit the conference theme, “Resilient Operations in a Changing World,” or one of the areas listed in the Call for Papers. The paper and presentation must be in English.
  3. The paper must be unpublished at the time of submission, completely anonymous, and submitted as a PDF. The main paper may not exceed 32 pages, including references, tables, figures, and appendices. An additional E-Companion may be included with the main paper.
  4. If the paper is also intended for presentation in the main conference, the author must submit the abstract separately through the regular abstract-submission track. A finalist paper must be presented again if it is also scheduled in an invited or contributed session.

Submission System

The competition will use the Microsoft Conference Management Toolkit (CMT).

CMT submission link: TBD

All entrants must have a valid CMT account. Existing users should use their current account. New users should create and verify a CMT account before submitting.

How to Submit

  1. Open the conference CMT link once it becomes available.
  2. Sign in and go to the Author Console.
  3. Select “Create new submission” and choose the Best Student Paper Competition track.
  4. Complete all required submission information and designate the entrant student as the primary contact.
  5. Upload the following two documents separately.

Required Documents

  1. Advisor cover letter. The letter should confirm that the entrant satisfies all eligibility requirements, including that the student’s contribution exceeds 50%. Name the file FirstNameLastName_letter.pdf.
  2. Anonymous paper. Combine the main paper and any E-Companion into one PDF. The main paper must use 1-inch margins, double spacing, and 11-point font, and may not exceed 32 pages including references and appendices. Author names must not appear in the document. Name the file FirstNameLastName_paper.pdf.

Selection Criteria

Each paper and presentation will be evaluated using the following criteria:

  1. Academic significance: originality, depth, completeness, and potential impact on future research.
  2. Business or engineering relevance: importance of the problem and its potential impact on business or engineering practice.

CMT Acknowledgment

The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.