Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award

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.

At a glance

  • What: Annual award for an outstanding early career.
  • Fields: Informatics and applied mathematics.
  • Who: Early-career researchers (see eligibility below).
  • Deadline: 30 May 2026
  • Submission: Read How to apply before submitting the nomination form
  • Contact: Monica Divitini, chair of the ERCIM Human Capital Task Group, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Eligibility

  • Nominees must have carried out their work in one of the ERCIM countries: Austria, Cyprus, 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 2023.
  • The nominee must have performed their research for at least one year in an institution located in one of the countries listed above.
  • A person can only be nominated once for the Cor Baayen Award.

The Cor Baayen Award is an early career researcher prize. ERCIM recognises a wide range of academic contributions and follows responsible evaluation criteria for research.

How to apply

The 2026 Call for the Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award is open Spring 2026.

  • Nominations must be submitted by a staff member of an ERCIM member institute. Self-nominations are not permitted.
  • Each ERCIM member institute may submit up to two nominations for final evaluation. If more than two candidates are nominated internally, the institute is responsible for selecting the two nominees to be submitted to ERCIM.
  • Nominations must be submitted using the Cor Baayen Award Nomination Form, which will be made available on this page when the call opens.
  • Each nomination must include:
    • a URL to the candidate’s full-text PhD thesis, and
    • URLs to the full texts of the candidate’s best papers or other major scientific achievements (up to a maximum of three).

Submit a nomination

Selection process

The selection of the Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award winner is the responsibility of the ERCIM Human Capital Task Group. To support its decision, the Task Group may seek expert opinions and typically appoints a selection committee composed of senior representatives from ERCIM member institutes.

Prize

The Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award is an internationally recognised distinction. The award carries a €5,000 prize, and the winner is usually invited to present their work at the ERCIM Fall Meetings, providing an opportunity to engage with the ERCIM research community and senior representatives from member institutes.

About Cor Baayen

Cor Baayen

The Cor Baayen Early Career Researcher Award is named after Cor Baayen, the first President of ERCIM and ERCIM’s Président d’Honneur. Cor Baayen played a central role in the foundation of ERCIM and in defining its scientific vision.

Cor Baayen was Scientific Director of the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands from 1980 to 1994. He joined the institute in 1959 as a researcher in pure mathematics and became group leader in 1965.

As Scientific Director, Cor Baayen successfully advocated for the inclusion of CWI in a national programme aimed at stimulating Dutch computer science research. He initiated or actively supported several key research areas, including cryptography, computer algebra, and performance analysis.

Past winners

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