Recognising Excellence in Emerging Talent

The Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award is a prestigious annual prize celebrating outstanding early career researchers in computer science and applied mathematics. Introduced in 1995 and named after ERCIM’s first president, the award honours scientific promise and achievement through a rigorous selection process. With a €5,000 prize, it stands as one of Europe’s most respected accolades for rising research talent.

The 2026 Call for Nominations will be published here soon. 

2025 Call for Nominations

Deadline has passed

Eligibility

• Nominees must have carried out their work in one of the ‘ERCIM countries’: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and The Netherlands. Nominees must have been awarded their PhD (or equivalent) after 30 April 2022.
• A person can only be nominated once for the Cor Baayen Award.

The Cor Baayen award is an early career researcher prize. We recognize a wide range of academic contributions and are committed to follow responsible evaluation criteria for research.

The nominees must have performed their research for at least one year in an institution located in one of the countries mentioned above.

Submitting a nomination

• Nominations must be submitted by a staff member of an ERCIM member institute. Self-nominations are not permitted. Each institute may submit up to two nominations for the final evaluation. If an ERCIM member institute receives more than two nominations, it is the institute’s responsibility to select the top two nominees.
• Nominations must be submitted using the Cor Baayen Award Nomination Form and must include a URL to the candidate’s full-text PhD thesis, as well as URLs to the full texts of the candidate’s best papers or other major scientific achievements (up to a maximum of 5).

We particularly encourage nominations of candidates from underrepresented minorities, encompassing but not limited to considerations of race, gender, and various abilities.

• The selection of the Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award winner falls under the responsibility of the ERCIM Human Capital Task Group, which may consult expert opinion to inform their decision.