Call for Doctoral Consortium

The WSDM 2027 Doctoral Consortium will provide doctoral students with a unique opportunity to have substantive interaction with experienced researchers regarding their proposed dissertation research.

The Consortium is designed to:

• Foster mentorship by pairing students with experienced researchers from the Consortium Committee, serving as mentors from both academia and industry.
• Facilitate community-building by enabling students to network with fellow doctoral students working in similar research areas or at a comparable stage of their dissertation.
• Support scholarly growth through presentations, feedback sessions, panel discussions, and informal interactions.

Submissions are invited on all topics related to Web Search and Data Mining. Please see the Call for Full Papers for a comprehensive list of relevant areas. The Doctoral Consortium will take place on February 15, 2027. The format will include student presentations with plenary discussions, individual meetings with experienced researchers, peer feedback, panel discussions, and informal interactions over breaks.

Applicants will be evaluated on the clarity and completeness of the submission packet, the potential impact of their research in Web Search and Data Mining, as well as the potential benefits the student will gain from participating in the Consortium. Eligible candidates should have completed a thesis proposal (or equivalent) or be making significant progress toward it. While late-stage students will be considered, the Consortium is most beneficial for those in the earlier stages of their dissertation.

Submissions must be singly authored by the student. Content may include published material as well as ongoing work. Students may also submit other papers or posters to WSDM and affiliated workshops. Students accepted to the Consortium will have the option of publishing a 3-page extended abstract summarizing their research in the full conference proceedings.

Presenting students will be eligible to apply for travel support through sponsoring organizations such as ACM SIGIR. Application details will be provided upon acceptance.

The submission has three parts.

Part 1: Research statement (up to three (3) pages, including references). It will be the basis for detailed discussions at the Consortium and should include:

• Motivation and research questions. The driving motivation for your dissertation research and the main research questions you aim to address.
• Background and related work. A concise summary of prior work, including key references.
• Research direction. An overview of your research direction, which may include previously presented work and ongoing or proposed research.
• Methodology and evaluation. Planned research methodology, proposed experiments (if applicable), and evaluation strategies.

You may also include specific perspectives or questions you’d like to receive feedback on or raise for discussion at the Consortium.

Part 2: Benefits statement (up to one (1) page). It should be added as an appendix to the research statement and must include:

• Student statement. It explains why you wish to attend the Consortium and how you expect to benefit.
• Advisor statement (1 paragraph). A short paragraph describing how the student would benefit from attending the Consortium. The advisor should also indicate whether the student has written, or is close to completing, a thesis proposal (or equivalent), and when they expect the student will defend their dissertation if they progress at a typical rate.

Part 3: CV (up to two (2) pages). It should also be added as an appendix.

Format Requirements

Submissions must be written in English and submitted in the new ACM camera-ready templates (use sample-sigconf.tex as the template).

The submission should be no more than 3 pages in length, including all figures and references. The appendix, including the benefits statement and CV, does not count toward the page limit.

The reviewing process will be single-blind. The first page must contain the title of the submission, full author name, affiliation and contact details, an abstract of up to 250 words, ACM Computing Reviews categories, and up to 3 keywords describing the topic areas.

Information about categories and keywords can be found in the ACM Web pages on the computing classification system and in the LaTeX and Word templates. Important: Submissions that do not comply with the format requirements will be desk-rejected.

Submitted manuscripts must adhere to the ACM authorship policy (https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship). In particular, the use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content is permitted but must be fully disclosed in the Work. If you are uncertain about the need to disclose the use of a particular tool, err on the side of caution, and include a disclosure in the acknowledgements section of the Work.

Consortium submissions must be in PDF format and submitted via the submission system. Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the Doctoral Consortium Committee.
Submission site: Doctoral Consortium proposals can be submitted via Microsoft CMT, choosing the "Doctoral Consortium" track: Microsoft CMT