Call for Doctoral Consortium Papers

The ECIR 2022 Doctoral Consortium is an excellent forum for PhD students to discuss their research ideas with world-class senior researchers in the field of Information Retrieval.

During the DC session, students’ presentations will be followed by discussions and individual meetings with senior researchers in the field.

We welcome submissions on any topic relevant to the field, including those mentioned in the Call for Full Papers. Example topics of interest include — but are not limited to — theory, experimentation, practice, applications and societal impacts of retrieval, recommendation, representation, management, and usage of textual, visual, audio, and multi-modal information. Students are also welcome to submit preliminary work seeking expert feedback and recommendation.

Prospective candidates for the Doctoral Consortium

Students who have recently completed their research proposal, or about to do so (typically 2nd year PhD students) are welcome to submit their contribution to the consortium. Students will be selected based on the potential of their research for future impact on the field of Information Retrieval and the likely benefit to the student of participating in the DC. Students will have the opportunity to engage in detailed discussion with advisors through individual sessions that will take place before and during the DC event.

Submission Guidelines

All candidates planning a submission must lodge a preliminary Expression of Interest, as a single page of LNCS-formatted text that indicates:

  • The name and institutional affiliation(s) of the candidate
  • The likely title of the final proposal
  • A brief abstract describing the proposal, of up to 250 words
  • A (non-binding) indication of your likely preference for either in-person or on-line attendance (candidates who expect to attend on-line may be coupled with an on-line mentor)

The Expression of Interest will be used to select potential mentors who will be asked to provide feedback on the main submission.

The main DC submission is required one week later. It may contain previously-published material, as well as ongoing work. The main submission has two parts. The first part, a research statement, should be no more than six (6) pages long (excluding references). Authors should consult Springer’s authors’ guidelines and use their proceedings templates, either for LaTeX or for Word, for the preparation of their papers.

It will be the basis for detailed discussions at the Consortium, and should include:

  • Motivation for the proposed research
  • Background and related work (including key references)
  • Description of proposed research, including main research questions
  • Research methodology and proposed experiments (where appropriate)
  • Specific research issues for discussion at the Doctoral Consortium

The second part, limited to one (1) page, describes benefits that would be obtained by attending the DC. It should be added as an appendix to the research statement and include:

  • A statement by the student saying why they want to attend the Consortium.
  • A brief statement (1 paragraph) by their advisor saying how the student would benefit by attending the DC. Advisors should also specifically state whether the student has written, or is close to completing, a thesis proposal (or equivalent), and when they expect the student would defend their dissertation if they progress at a typical rate.

Format Requirements

All submissions must be written in English following the ECIR guidelines and the LNCS author guidelines and submitted electronically through EasyChair. The first page must contain the title of the paper, full author name, affiliation(s) and contact details, and an abstract of up to 250 words.

Accepted Papers

Students accepted to the Consortium will have the option of publishing a 4-page extended abstract summarizing their research in the full ECIR conference proceedings.

Important dates

Expression of Interest: November 4,  2021, 11:59 pm (AoE)
Doctoral Consortium Paper Submission: November 11,  2021, 11:59 pm (AoE)
Notification: December 16, 2021
Doctoral Consortium day: April 13, 2022

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

Asia Biega (Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany)
Alistair Moffat (The University of Melbourne, Australia)

Contact: ecir2022-dc@easychair.org