The first phase of the Student Paper Contest 2023, which is the fifty-sixth edition of this prestigious and long-standing R8 student contest, has been completed. There were 13 submissions in total, of which 12 were accepted as valid. The papers were submitted by the following student branches: UCLouvain University (Belgium); two papers by Imperial College London (UK); University of Birmingham (UK); University of Niš (Serbia); Multimedia University of Kenya (Kenya); Kyambogo University (Uganda); Mutah University (Jordan); University of Ljubljana (Slovenia); University of Maribor (Slovenia); King Abdulaziz University (Saudi Arabia); and Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology of Sousse (Tunisia).

The SPC 2023 international jury, whose members are: Prof. Gianfranco Chicco from Italy, Prof. Joao Carlos Ferreira from Portugal, Prof. Paul Micallef  from Malta, and Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia, has anonymously selected the following five papers (listed in alphabetical order) for the Regional Oral Finals:

• Jakub Lála, Imperial College London, UK, “Coarse-Graining of Molecular Dynamics Using Neural Ordinary Differential Equations”
• Jonathan Parion, UCLouvain University, Belgium, “Low-temperature admittance spectroscopy for defect characterization in Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 thin-film solar cells”
• Sarah Alyafeai, Rawan Duhaithem, Sara Alamoudi, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, “Smart Assistive Wearable Device for Alzheimer’s Patients”
• Saša Obradović, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, “Evaluation of inertial measurement units and non-invasive muscle contraction sensors for monitoring cycling biomechanics”
• Wenqiang Lai, Qihan Yang, Ye Mao, Endong Sung, Jiangnan Ye, Imperial College London, UK, “Knowledge Distilled Ensemble Model for sEMG-based Silent Speech Interface”

SPC 2023 Oral Finals will be organized within the scope of R8 flagship conference EUROCON 2023, in Turin, Italy, July 6-8, 2023. The awards for students are $800, $500, and $200 for first, second, and third place, respectively, and the award for the winner’s Student Branch is $250.

The IEEE R8 Student Activities Committee congratulates the authors of the top five papers and the branches where the finalists come from!

Many thanks to all participants in the SPC 2023! We would like to encourage the participating student branches, as well as all other Region 8 SBs, to take part in the SPC 2024!

GENERAL

The Student Paper Contest (SPC) is one of the main technical activities in Region 8. It was established in 1967 and since then it is an excellent occasion for personal leadership and involvement of student members in a prospective IEEE scientific/technical activity. The contest increases the visibility of student branches and allows for wider promotion of IEEE among students. The success of the SPC relies heavily on the input from the Student Branch Officers, especially the Student Branch Counselor and the Student Branch Chair.

Once every year, each IEEE R8 Student Branch (SB) may hold and organize a local Student Paper Contest under its own responsibility. The organization of a local SPC generally means that the contest should be announced publicly in advance and that all submitted papers are to be locally reviewed by qualified specialists. Additionally, all R8/Sections/Chapters IEEE Conferences, having student papers sessions included in their programs, could and should also be used to get additional proposals for SPC. As long as an SB is formally supporting and accepting any type of student papers contest activity, it is in line with the existing SPC rules. Student Branch Counselors should be fully involved in all local SPC activities, as well as all other local IEEE officers (Section Chairs, Chapter Chairs, student activities officers, members of executive committees, etc.).

The winner(s) of each local Student Branch Contest may compete in the Region 8 Contest. A Student Branch may submit one paper per every 100 Student Branch members or part thereof, with a maximum of three papers per SB. At the same time, especially in small branches where the managing a local contest is difficult, the IEEE section officers can encourage students to submit their work as a paper to the regional SPC. This is a good exercise for students, especially those who intend to continue to a doctorate. Starting this year, the IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee offers funding to IEEE Region 8 Sections and Student Branches to establish local student paper contests, through the Local Student Paper Contest Events Program. The aim of this new program is to increase student paper contest awareness and participation.

WHO COULD PARTICIPATE

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest is intended for IEEE R8 student members or graduate student members who have not yet started their Ph.D. The work presented in the paper has to be completed before the student receives the engineering degree that entitles her/him to start preparing a doctoral thesis and it should be not published previously. The submission of a paper for SPC must be no later than 12 months after graduation. 

Papers should cover technical and engineering aspects of a subject within or related to the areas with which the IEEE is concerned. The work need not be strictly original in the scientific sense, but it should be original in the treatment of a certain topic and the author’s contribution to that topic should be clearly seen.

At initial submission, only students can be authors of the IEEE R8 SPC papers and each author must be a member of an IEEE Student Branch. However, in the second SPC phase, after five finalists are selected, the rules allow a supervisor/mentor to be added as a co-author in the final version of the paper which will be included in the conference proceedings and IEEE Xplore Library. This does not change in any way the basic rule that the submitted paper is the work of the student. At the time of the oral finals, which is normally about a half year after the initial submission, each finalist must be still a member of IEEE.

CONTEST PROCEDURE

Submitted papers will be graded by an international jury composed of 4-5 experts who are usually university professors from different Region 8 countries. The review will be double-blind, which means that the judges will handle the papers without knowledge of the identity of the authors/institutions. Jury members can engage other reviewers who are specialists in the corresponding fields. Based on grading, the top 5 papers will be selected. All five finalists (one author per paper) will be invited to present their papers at the IEEE R8 flagship conference EUROCON 2023 in Turin, Italy, on July 6-8, 2023.

The oral presentations will be graded by the same international jury as in the first part of the contest. On the basis of both the written and oral parts of the competition, the final ranking list and the decision about the winner will be made. There are prizes for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place of $800, $500, and $200, respectively. In addition, the student branch where the winner comes from will be awarded $250. The top 5 papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

DEADLINE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The paper submitted for SPC must not contain any data about authors and their institutions. It should not exceed 6 pages and must be written using the two-column IEEE Transaction style (with the space between columns equal to 4.1 mm). Please, carefully read AUTHORS GUIDELINES ON PAPER LAYOUT which is a part of “SPC rules”.

The paper must be accompanied by the following documents:

• COVER PAGE (send as a Word document)
• PAPER SUPPLEMENT (send as a Word document)
• COUNSELOR CERTIFICATE (send as a pdf document)
• IEEE Copyright form (send as a pdf document)

The deadline to send full papers to IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2023 is December 1st December 15th, 2022. Please send papers and supporting documents by email to [email protected].

ATTACHMENTS

• COVER PAGE FORM
• PAPER SUPPLEMENT FORM
• COUNSELOR CERTIFICATE FORM
• IEEE COPYRIGHT FORM
• SPC RULES