Doctoral Consortium: Call for Applications

The 23rd International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2026) invites PhD students to apply for the Doctoral Consortium program.

Important Dates

Several scholarships will be available. Information about scholarships will be announced at a later time on the KR 2026 website.

Aims and Scope

The Doctoral Consortium (DC) is a student mentoring program bringing together PhD students and senior researchers from the area of KR. The aims of the consortium are:

The DC is intended for PhD students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but who have sufficient time prior to completing their dissertation to benefit from the consortium experience. Preference will be given to students satisfying these criteria, but we also encourage students to apply who are at an earlier or more advanced stage of completion of their thesis. Accepted students will participate in several dedicated DC events, which will likely consist of

The precise format of the DC will be finalized closer to the conference. Each student will be given ample time to present their work and therefore be able to fully benefit from direct feedback from the assigned senior researcher mentor and the wider KR conference audience.

Application Submission

Each application must contain the following elements combined into a single PDF document:

  1. DC paper. A description of a problem being addressed, your motivation for addressing the problem, proposed plan of research, the progress to date (what you have already achieved and what remains to be done), and related work. It is up to the student which of these points is emphasised most. The maximum number of pages is four (bibliography included), and the same style as for KR paper submissions should be used (see https://kr.org/KR2026/submission.html).
  2. Curriculum Vitae. A description of your background and relevant experience (research, education, employment), maximum two pages.
  3. Brief letter of recommendation. A brief letter from your thesis advisor stating that they support your participation in the DC.
  4. Optionally, a suggestion of some potential mentors with similar research interests, who could give good advice on technical aspects related to the work, and/or career opportunities. For inspiration on whom to name, you can refer to the program committee members of previous KR conferences.

Information about the submission procedure will be available on this page: https://kr.org/KR2026/submission.html

The selection process will consider the quality of the submitted proposal. By default, proposals of the selected students will be made available to the public. Every student may decide that their paper will not be made public by explicitly indicating this to the DC chairs. This is mainly to enable doctoral students to submit previously published or recently submitted works and to encourage them to submit papers to KR 2026 and associated conferences and workshops.

Inquiries should be sent by email to the KR 2026 Doctoral Consortium Chairs: kr26-dc-chairs@lirmm.fr.

Doctoral Consortium Chairs