Call for thesis projects of the Graduate School ISN

Annual call 2024

The Graduate School of Computer Science and Digital Sciences (GS ISN) is announcing a call for research project funding for the second year.

This year, we are funding up to 4 doctoral grants. The allocated amount will cover the thesis funding and a part of the research environment; the specific amounts will be communicated later.

The selection process will consider (but is not limited to) the quality and originality of the projects. We aim for the projects to bring forth new themes and foster new interactions between different approaches, communities, or research teams. Thus, collaboration can be between two GS ISN teams or between a GS ISN team and a team outside the GS but within the perimeter of the Université Paris-Saclay (in the latter case, the PhD student must be attached to the ED STIC).
Projects between 2 LISN teams from LIMSI and LRI will be considered.
In addition, teams from outside the Université Paris-Saclay may be invited to participate in the project.

The proposals will be evaluated by a committee that may invite external experts from the Université Paris-Saclay to assess the quality of the submitted projects.

This year, we will select a set of 8 labeled projects (unordered list). The next step will be the candidates' audition by the STIC Doctoral School (ED STIC): 4 candidates will be selected as the primary list (unordered), and a supplementary ordered list will be established. The GS ISN will financially support the four candidate-project pairs (for a starting thesis in autumn 2024). After notification and acceptance of the grant by the candidates, the list of winners will be posted on the GS ISN website.

The projects must be submitted on ADUM before March 11, 2024, selecting "Programme AAP SPRINGCS de la GS ISN" as the type of funding for the doctoral project.

Note:

  • Your project can be submitted simultaneously to other calls. For example, if it is eligible for the "Concours Blanc," you can add the funding "Contrat ED: programme blanc GS-ISN."
  • On the form, in the box
    • "Modalité d'encadrement, de suivi de la formation et d'avancement des recherches du doctorant", details of how the co-supervision will be managed must be given, along with logistical and administrative details.
    • "Condition Scientifiques et matérielles (Condition de sécurité spécifiques et financières du projet de recherche)", in the "Collaboration" section (not mandatory, but to be completed in our case), indicate the scientific contribution of each of the supervisors and the added value of the collaboration.

Important dates:

*Submission deadline: March 11, 2024 (23:59 french time zone)
*Deadline for subject validation by the research unit's director: April 29, 2024
*Decision by the GS committee (labeling or not): April 30, 2024
*Deadline for students’ application on ADUM: May 13, 2024
*Audition of candidates by the ED STIC: between May 27 and June 4, 2024
*Jury of the ED STIC: June 7, 2024

Archives

Starting in 2023, Université Paris-Saclay's Graduate School Computer Science (GS ISN) takes over from the Labex Digicosme for funding research projects.

For this first year, we will fund up to four Ph.D. grants, two of which will be joint with DATAIA.

The funding, whose exact amount will be announced later, will cover the Ph.D. grant and a share of associated expenses (conferences, etc.).

Selection will be based on scientific value and novelty; we want the projects to shape new interactions between different research teams, on a new and original subject. Hence, the collaboration can be between two teams of the GS ISN but also between a team in the GS ISN and an outside one (but in the Université Paris-Saclay).  In this latter case, the Ph.D. student must be affiliated with the ED STIC. In addition, teams from outside the University of Paris-Saclay may be invited to participate in the project.
A joint committee will assess the proposals; the committee may invite additional evaluation expertise from outside Université Paris-Saclay.

The evaluation committee will shortlist at most four projects; further proposals may be ranked on a secondary list. Auditioning of candidates by the doctoral school (ED STIC), will be the second stage; the candidates selected by the proposers for the shortlisted projects will be funded under the condition that the project, i.e. (subject + candidate), is accepted by ED STIC for the Fall 2023 campaign. Therefore, the subject must also be submitted on ADUM.

Proposals should be sent to gs.isn@universite-paris-saclay.fr no later than le January 29, 2023 February 12, 2023, in pdf format. They should be no longer than five (5) pages and contain:

  •  a description of the participating research team, exhibiting the relevance of the cooperation (novelty and originality of the partnership, impact on the participating teams, etc.),
  •  a short state of the art giving the scientific context and the positioning of the project (novelty, challenge, impact, ...),
  •  a description of the work expected from the Ph.D. candidate, the methodology to be used during the Ph.D. research, and organization of the work within the different teams involved, and
  •  a quick description of the qualification profile (prerequisites) expected from the candidate. The selection of candidates being done in a subsequent procedure, the candidate's identity, even if already known, should not be given in the proposal.

Important dates:
* Submission deadline: Jan 29, 2023 Feb 12, 2023
* Committee decision: March 15, 2023 March 22, 2023
* Subject submission on ADUM, including validation by research unit director: before May 10, 2023
* Candidate's audition by the ED STIC: June 2023

Jury:
- Sébastien Bardin (CEA LIST)
- Mohamed Chadli (IBISC)
- Guillaume Charpiat (INRIA, LISN)
- Antoine Girard (L2S)
- Stefan Haar (INRIA, LMF)
- Oguz Kaya (LISN)
- Kinda Khawam (DAVID & LISN)
- Vincent Mousseau (MICS)
- Claire Nedellec (INRAE MAIAGE)
- Marc Pérache (CEA LIHPC) (suppléant : Franck Ledoux, CEA LIHPC)
- Emmanuel Pietriga (INRIA, LISN)
- Aurélien Plyer (ONERA)
- Franck Quessette (DAVID)
- Marco Di Renzo (L2S)
- Guillaume Scerri (LMF)
- Nasredine Semmar (CEA LIST)

Templates:
Latex and ODT templates can be found here : https://cirrus.universite-paris-saclay.fr/s/CFxpcRF4M7dZrS9

Results:

  • Shorlist:
    • Spectral-Based Inverse Material Design with Graph Neural Networks submitted by Jerémie Cabessa (DAVID)
    • An EXplainable RecommandER SYStem for the Nutrition Domain, combining Knowledge Graphs and Machine Learning submitted by Vincent Guigue (Ekinocs, AgroParisTech, INRAE)
    • A CausaL Explanation-oRiented DEEP Structured framework for trustability submitted by Arthur Tenenhaus (L2S)
    • Fast Optimal Transport for the Decoding of Human Brains Activity submitted by Bertrand Thirion (Inria)
  • Ordered secondary list :
    • Hybrid AR-Desktop Scientific Data Exploration submitted by Tobias Isenberg (LISN/INRIA)
    • Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing for enriching French Sign Language resources submitted by Michèle Gouiffes (LISN)
    • Large Scale Simulation-Based Inference Applied to PredictingCognition submitted by Demian Wassermann (Inria)
    • Co-constructing Bayesian networks through Collaborative visualization to improve wheat quality assessment submitted by Nadia Boukhelifa (INRA, MIA)
    • Algorithms and Graph Theory for Bioinformatics submitted by François Pirot (LISN)
    • Optimizing Human Learning, applied to Learning to Code submitted by Jill-Jênn Vie (Inria)