The Finance Section of INFORMS seeks to recognize and honor outstanding student-authored papers in the field of finance. We define the scope broadly to include any work that addresses challenging problems in financial markets through mathematical modeling, quantitative analysis, or decision-making frameworks.
This Student Best Paper Award has always attracted high-quality papers over the years. Winners and honorable mentions have published their papers in top journals of the field.
Submission Guideline
Student complete papers are due by July 15, 2025 and should be sent to the Review Committee via informs.committee@gmail.com with subject - "Best Student Paper Competition in Finance".
- The student entrant must be a member of the Finance Section on the date of submission.
- The participant is a student or was a student on July 1st, 2025.
- The paper must not have won a prize (1st-2nd) in a previous INFORMS Finance Student Paper Competition.
- A student may submit no more than one paper to the competition.
- The paper must represent original research conducted primarily by the student and not have been published elsewhere. (It is OK if the paper is under review for a conference/journal.)
- Some assistance by other researchers (such as the student's faculty advisor) is permitted, and the paper may be co-authored with them, as long as the student makes a major contribution.
- The main body of the paper should be at most 25 pages long, excluding references and technical appendices, using Management Science style requirements.
- The topic of the paper should be aligned with the research interests of the INFORMS Finance Section. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, portfolio selection, machine learning in finance, networks and systemic risk, financial technology (e.g. Blockchain and cryptocurrency applications), market liquidity and frictions, financial econometrics, algorithmic trading and market microstructure, commodities markets, credit risk and fixed income modeling.
- If your paper is selected among finalists, you will be asked to present at the Finance Student Paper session at the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
- Winners and honorable mentions will be awarded at the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
- At the discretion of the committee, awards are not given should the number of submissions be less than 15.
If you have any questions regarding the Award, please feel free to contact informs.committee@gmail.com and we look forward to receiving your submission.
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Zachary Feinstein
Assistant Professor
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken NJ
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