Doctoral SymposiumICT4S 2026

Call for the Doctoral Symposium

Whether virtual or in-person, the ICT4S doctoral symposium features a highly interactive and generative format designed to help doctoral students strengthen their work. It will bring together doctoral students working in all areas of ICT for Sustainability, providing participants opportunities to present and discuss their research in a constructive and collegial setting and create new connections. Each student will present their research project and receive constructive feedback from peers and experienced researchers. The doctoral symposium will take place on Friday, 12th of June 2026.

Who Should Participate

The doctoral symposium welcomes any doctoral student whose dissertation topic is strongly aligned with ICT4S, and whose scholarship would benefit from external feedback. You can refer to the research papers track for exemplary topics.

While participation on-site at the conference is encouraged, virtual participation in the doctoral symposium will be possible. At the doctoral symposium, you will present your research, gain valuable feedback from researchers across diverse disciplines and career stages, and broaden your professional network. Further details on the symposium, agenda and instructions, will be shared once submissions have been accepted.

Submission Instructions

Applicants are asked to submit an extended abstract (maximum 1,500 words - not including titles and references) addressing the following points:

• Your current position (academic institution, department, supervisor, year of study, stage of dissertation)
• Dissertation Information (as relevant to your stage)
  • Context and motivation of your research
  • Research objectives/goals/questions
  • If not evident, the relevance to the ICT4S field
  • Proposed methods
  • Project status and next steps
• Whether you plan to participate on-site or virtually
• A statement on the benefits you expect from participating and what you propose to contribute to the gathering

Extended abstracts should be submitted electronically via EasyChair. The submission link will be published soon.

NOTES:

• Submissions must be authored exclusively by the applicant (doctoral student).
• The confidentiality of submissions will be maintained during the review process.

Evaluation Criteria

The Doctoral Symposium Committee aspires to bring together doctoral students from a diversity of backgrounds whose collective inquiries cover a broad range of topic areas related to ICT4S. The following criteria will be used by the Doctoral Symposium Committee to select participants:

• The relevance of the research to the ICT4S field. This may be explicitly argued for in the submission or evident through clear alignment of the submission with the topics described in the research papers track.
• The stage of the research and its suitability for the doctoral symposium.
• The quality of the submission, e.g., clarity of writing, connections to earlier ICT4S research, evidence that the participant is willing to engage with and contribute feedback to their colleagues.

Timeline

The following timeline is binding.

Questions

In case of questions, please feel free to contact the track chairs: Mario Angst (mario.angst@uzh.ch) or Maria Franco Mosquera (maria.francomosquera@bfh.ch).