2026 MSOM Student Paper Competition
DEADLINE: 11:59 PM PDT, Sunday, June 7, 2026
The INFORMS Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society announces the 2026 Student Paper Competition. The awards are given annually for papers judged to be the best in the field of Operations Management.
The first prize is accompanied by a $1000 honorarium. The second prize is accompanied by a $500 honorarium. All other finalists will be awarded $200. The number of finalists will depend on the number and quality of entries. Typically, there are between four and six finalists, including the first and second place winners.
Finalists will be invited to submit abstracts of their paper for publication in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM). Please note, under INFORMS policy, the publication of such abstracts in no way conflicts with submission of the full manuscript for review to any INFORMS or other journal for publication. In addition, the M&SOM journal would like to invite all finalists to submit their full-length papers to M&SOM for a fast-track review, and the acceptance decisions of all submissions will be made after 1 round of review (i.e., within 6 weeks).
The winner will be announced (and all finalists will be acknowledged) at the MSOM business meeting at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, US (November 1-4, 2026). All finalists will be invited to present their paper in one or two special sessions sponsored by MSOM during the conference.
Eligibility Conditions:
There are six conditions for eligibility:
1. Entrant must hold a student status on or after January 1, 2026, and the research presented in the paper must have been conducted while the entrant was a student.
2. The submitted paper must present original research conducted primarily by the individual student entrant. Some assistance by other individuals (such as the student's faculty advisor) is permitted; however, the entrant's primary research advisor must certify that the student's share of contribution to the paper exceeds 50%. (Note that joint student submissions are therefore not allowed.)
3. Entrant must be a member of the MSOM Society on the date of submission (in addition to being an INFORMS member).
4. The paper must not have won a prize (1st or 2nd) in a previous MSOM student paper competition.
5. A student may submit no more than one paper to the competition.
6. The paper should adhere to the formatting guidelines of the Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) journal (more information, below).
Submission Package:
A complete entry includes the following:
1. Cover sheet:
Contact information for the student entrant, contact information of the entrant's primary research advisor, names of all co-authors, and the paper title.
2. Advisor's letter:
A letter in PDF file format signed by both a faculty advisor and the entrant attesting that the entrant and the paper satisfy the eligibility conditions.
3. The paper:
The manuscript should be submitted as a PDF. It should be completely anonymous. The paper (and appendices) should be strictly compliant with the formatting standards of the journal M&SOM (see https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/msom/submission-guidelines). In particular, the main paper cannot exceed 32 pages, including all references, tables, graphs, and appendices, using either the Latex or Word style files for M&SOM. The online supplement should be no longer than 16 pages. If you submit the online supplement, the paper and the online supplement must be submitted jointly as a single file. The file name should be the short title of the paper. Papers that do not satisfy submission guidelines will be disqualified.
Submission instructions
The link for submission will be shared closer to the deadline. (The MSOM society is considering a new submission system for the competition.)
Complete entries must be received by 11:59 PM PDT Sunday, June 7, 2026. It is the entrant's responsibility to allow for appropriate time to enroll as a new member of the MSOM Society (approximately 5 business days). Any question(s) related to the competition should be sent by email to 2026msomstudentcomp@gmail.com
Good luck to all entrants!
Jónas Oddur Jónasson, Heikki Peura, and Morvarid Rahmani
Co-Chairs, 2026 MSOM Student Paper Competition
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Jónas Oddur Jónasson
Associate Professor of Analytics & Operations
Imperial College London
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