Call for Doctoral Consortium Contributions
Apart from the submission of regular papers to KI2026, we solicit submissions to the Doctoral Consortium (DC) of the conference, which will be held on August 11, 2026.
The DC aims to offer early stage researchers from any AI subject area a unique opportunity to present their planned research, and to connect to fellow PhD students as well as senior researchers in AI. The focus is to provide a safe, friendly and constructive space in which participants can openly exchange experiences and get advice on potential next steps in their research and career.
Doctoral Consortium Format
Each student with an accepted doctoral research proposal will get the opportunity to present their work in an oral presentations. For those interested, there will be the opportunity to present their work to the general KI audience in a poster session. Additionally, there will be a keynote from a senior researcher.
Doctoral students may participate in a mentoring program that will connect students with experienced researchers in their field. There will be personal meetings between mentors and students, where they can obtain personal feedback to their research proposal.
Important dates (any time on earth)
- Submission deadline: May 15, 2026
- Acceptance notification: June 4, 2026
- Doctoral Consortium: Aug 11, 2026 at KI2026, Bremen, Germany
Call for Contributions
We invite submissions of either a full research proposal by early stage doctoral students in the field of AI, or short research interest statements of recently finished / soon to finish M.Sc. students. Authors of accepted submissions are expected to present their work in a talk at the DC and get the opportunity to present their work at a poster session for the general audience of the KI conference. Presented submissions will be published as proceedings of the Doctoral Consortium in the GI-DL (GI Digital Library).
Doctoral Thesis Research Proposals (up to 4 pages double-column, excluding references and supplementary material)
Research Proposal Papers summarize the main research questions addressed in your doctoral thesis project, contextualize the associated research gap against related works, and outline the approach by which you want to address them. The appendix may contain supplemental material (no page limit) containing detailed material that is summarized in the research proposal, e.g., additional tables or further illustrations. It is not necessary to already have experimental results. Hints on a sensible structure are provided further below.
M.Sc. Thesis Abstracts (max. 2 pages, double column, excl. references)
This should be a summary of the Master thesis results together with a brief research statement summarizing follow-up questions and research interests that could be addressed during a subsequent research.
Application / Submission
To apply for the DC, please submit the following documents in a single pdf file to the Easy Chair Submission System here (Track Doctoral Consortium) no later than May 15, 2026 (any time on earth):
- your paper submission including supplementary material, formatted in CEUR style (LaTeX template here, chose "twocolumn");
- a short CV (max. 2 pages) that covers background (name, university, supervisors), education (degree sought, year/status in a degree, previous degrees), employment, and experience in research (publications, presentations, conferences attended).
In case you do not want to participate in the mentoring program, please indicate this clearly in the header of your CV.
For acceptance, submissions must adhere to above formatting guidelines, be in English, and must have a single author who is arguably an early stage researcher.
Fee
Participants must register for the DC at KI 2026 for participating at the DC and the poster session. Alternatively a registration purely for the DC is possible.
Schedule
There are nine papers accepted for presentation, for a detailed program, see here.
Additionally, there will be a tutorial on how to write research papers by Dr. Kai Sauerwald from the FernUniversität Hagen. The slides can be found here.
Further Reading
Additional useful information on pursuing the Phd, particularly one in AI, can be found in the following books:
- Stefano V. Albrecht. Becoming an AI Researcher: Practical Advice for Graduate Students. Cambridge University Press, 2026 (link)
- Ling, Charles, and Qiang Yang. Crafting your Research Future: A Guide to Successful Master's and PhD Degrees in Science & Engineering. Synthesis Lectures on Engineering, Science, and Technology. Springer Cham, 2012 (link)
- Medawar, Peter Brian. Advice to a young scientist. Basic Books, 2008 (link)
Hints on Structuring the Research Proposal
The goal of the research proposal is to obtain feedback during the early orientation phase that is part of a doctoral student's journey. Hence, it should describe the problem being addressed and the motivation for addressing the problem, positioning with respect to related work, the proposed approach, and planned or already executed evaluation. A structure for the targeted length of 2-4 pages could be:
- Introduction & Motivation
What is the problem addressed and what is the motivation behind it? - Research Question
What is the main research question / research hypothesis guiding your research? Possibly: How can it be broken down into sub-questions / -hypotheses? - Related Work
What is solved so far, and what is the concrete research gap you want to address? - Approach
How do you plan to / what are your ideas to answer the question? In particular: What methodology do you want to use? - (Planned) Evaluation
If applicable: What subsequent experiments shall provide evidence to your hypotheses, and what is their planned timeframe?
(Optional: Are there preliminary experimental results providing support that your approach is promising?)
Contact
In case of any questions regarding the Doctoral Consortium at KI 2026, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Mena Leemhuis (mena.leemhuis@jku.at) or Dr. Isabelle Kuhlmann (isabelle.kuhlmann@fernuni-hagen.de).