Dissertation Prize

VeRoLog Doctoral Dissertation Prize

VeRoLog DDP 2024 Announcement

The VeRoLog Doctoral Dissertation Prize (VeRoLog DDP) is issued by the EURO working group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics optimization (VeRoLog) and is awarded at each VeRoLog annual conference. The purpose of the prize is to distinguish an outstanding PhD thesis on Operational Research methods applied to the Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization. It will be awarded at the VeRoLog 2024 conference (Tel Aviv, February 25-28, 2024).

Eligibility of applications

The VeRoLog DDP 2024 jury will only consider PhD theses in Operational Research defended between  January 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. Nominations are NOT restricted to members of societies that belong to EURO.

To be considered, a dissertation should be nominated by the supervisor of the thesis (one of them in case of multiple supervisors). The supervisor of the dissertation is asked to provide the jury with the following information:

1. the text of the dissertation,
2. an extended abstract (up to 5 pages) of the dissertation; this abstract should be written in English,
3. if the dissertation is not written in English, a paper in English authored (or co-authored) by the author of the dissertation and describing the core ideas of the thesis. This paper should preferably have been published in or submitted to an international journal.
4. nomination letters (or reports) from two referees selected by the dissertation supervisor, supporting the submission and stating their assessment of why the thesis should win the award.
5. an up-to-date CV of the candidate, including a list of publications.

No nomination will be considered without these items.

All information should be sent in electronic form to the chairman of the jury, Prof. Fabien Lehuédé using a compressed format (e.g. zip).

Since many PhD theses in OR are defended each year, the jury would like to remind supervisors that only outstanding pieces of work have a reasonable chance of winning the award.

Jury

The jury of VeRoLog DDP 2024 is:

1. Fabien Lehuédé, IMT- Atlantique, LS2N, Nantes, Nantes, France (chair)
2. Michael Schneider, RWTH Aachen, Germany
3. Roberto Roberti, University of Padova, Italy

Selection process

The members of the jury will study each application in detail. The jury evaluates the applications taking the following points into account:

• Originality and novelty of the subject,
• Pertinence of the subject for VeRoLog DDP;
• Depth and breadth of the results,
• Contributions of the dissertation to the theory and practice of OR applied to Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization,
• Applications and/or potential applicability of the results,
• Impact on related fields,
• Quality of the related publications.

The jury may decide not to assign the prize if no thesis reaches an adequate level of quality.

Award

The prize consists in a certificate and a reward of Euro 500.

Deadlines

The deadline for submitting applications is November 15, 2023

Contact

Prof. Dr. Fabien Lehuédé

E-mail:  fabien.lehuede@imt-atlantique.fr