euRobotics opens its Call for the 2026 Georges Giralt PhD Award.
The aim of the “Georges Giralt Ph.D. Award” is to showcase the best PhD theses defended during 2025 in European universities from all areas of robotics. Outstanding theses with strong theoretical contributions, a focus on professional applications or technology transfer, with a high degree of multidisciplinarity, or showing how robotics technologies can be applied to new domains, are all eligible for the award.
The award consists of a trophy and the publication of the thesis by Springer in the STAR series. The award will be presented to the winner(s) during the euRobotics Awards Ceremony at the next European Robotics Forum in Stavanger, Norway on Wednesday 25 March 2026.
Please note:
- The award covers the solar year and the submission deadline is Wednesday 31 December 2025.
- The selection of the finalists will be announced mid-to end-of-February 2025, and these finalists are expected to give a 15-20 minute presentation of their research at the Forum in Stavanger, since part of the award evaluation will be made on the basis of their oral presentation.
- The oral presentation is, by default, in person. Exceptions will be handled case by case by informing the board.
- The official date of the PhD for being eligible for the award is the viva-voce defense. The finalists are requested to provide their defense date with a copy of the committee report or an email from their supervisor certifying the defense date.
- The eligible countries correspond to geographical Europe + associated countries in Horizon Europe funding program. This is the current list of associated countries.
- Only self-candidatures are accepted.
- Submissions are made by sending an email to the Georges Giralt PhD Award Committee via phd.award@eu-robotics.net after filling the form
- The pdf thesis file should be unchanged wrt what is sent to the committee.
- Each finalist will receive a financial support for the travel of 500€ + Free ticket to ERF + free ticket to the official dinner following the ceremony.
The jury for the Georges Giralt Ph.D. Award consists of members belonging to the euRobotics community. Check their names and those of previous award winners here.
GEORGES GIRALT PHD AWARD
The Georges Giralt PhD Award is a European scientific prize for extraordinary contributions in robotics. It is awarded annually at the European Robotics Forum by euRobotics AISBL, a non-profit organisation based in Brussels with the objective to boost European robotics research, development and innovation for the benefit of Europe’s economy and society and to foster a positive perception of robotics.
Georges Giralt received his PhD in 1958, from the Paul Sabatier University, in the domain of electrical machines, and soon afterwards became a pioneer in robotics, in Europe and worldwide. He was especially instrumental in bringing in scientific foundations and methodology when the domain was still young, and a loose coupling of mechanical and electrical engineering, adopting the early results of automatic control.
The high reputation of the Georges Giralt PhD Award is based on the prominent role of the awarding institution euRobotics. With about 250 member organisations, euRobotics represents the academic and industrial robotics community in Europe.
All robotics-related dissertations which have been successfully defended at a European university are eligible for participation in the Georges Giralt PhD Award, i.e. the granting institution must be located in the EU or one of the associated countries eligible for Horizon Europe funding,
The US-American counterpart is the Dick Volz Award.