Best Paper Award

AI-SMART Conference Best Paper Award

Award Guidelines and Criteria

Purpose: The purpose of the Best Paper Award is to recognize and promote quality contributions to academic research and writing among scholars and students who present and publish papers at the AI-SMART conference.

Eligibility: All full papers submitted and published in the AI-SMART conference, regardless of the status of the first authors (i.e., scholar, student, educator, policy maker, or professional, etc.), are eligible for competition for the Best Paper Award.

Initial Score-based Selection: The 5 accepted papers receiving the highest scores in the review process are chosen as candidates.

Award Candidates Announcement: Authors of the 5 selected papers will be informed before the conference publications finalization, and the candidates will be announced on the homepage.

Award Selection Committee Work: The Scientific Committee members will score candidate papers.

Award Criteria: The Scientific Committee will consider innovation, significance to the research community, scientific impact, and technical excellence.

Each paper will be given a score of 0 – 10 (where 0 is the lowest and 10 is the highest score) against each criterion.

Main criteria:

• Originality (weighting 40%) – Originality of contribution to knowledge with an emphasis on the paper’s innovativeness in: (i) theoretical development, (ii) empirical results or, (iii) policy development.
• Quality of Argument (weighting 30%) incorporating: (i) critical analysis of concepts, theories, and findings, and (ii) consistency and coherence of debate.
• Positioning (weighting 15%) – Clear positioning of paper in existing international literature with a conclusion(s) that is both convincing and of significant potential.
• Writing Style (weighting 15%) – Quality of writing style in terms of accuracy, clarity, readability, and organization of the paper.

Meta-criterion that is specifically applied to the Best Paper Award category is that the winner of the award should be a paper that substantiates a new and novel idea or approach contributing to the cumulative knowledge base of the field and is likely to inspire fellow scholars in their research, as opposed to just grinding out yet another example of a well-known approach or result (even if the study was neatly conducted and reported). In other words, it is the “WOW” factor that we hope to see in the winning paper.

Winners Definition: The paper receiving the highest score by the Scientific Committee members will be awarded the Best Paper Award.

The author of an awarded paper, and co-authors if any, will be entitled to:

• A signed and stamped official award certificate with the name of the award, the name of the paper, and the names of the authors of the paper;
• The announcement of their achievement on a conference website.

• A complimentary 365-day Regular Associate Membership in the Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans (UdEkoM Balkans – www.udekom-balkans.com), granting full access to all membership benefits. If the recipient is already a member of UdEkoM Balkans, this offer will extend the existing membership by an additional 365 days.

  The Regular Associate Membership includes:

  Basic Member rights:
  – Right to participate in all Association activities and events at publicly announced member participation fees.
  – Access to newsletters, official announcements, and public calls.
  – Eligibility to submit abstracts and full papers to Association-organized conferences.
  – Entitlement to receive up to two (2) iThenticate similarity reports per month for ongoing research or publication purposes.*
  – Entitlement to receive an official confirmation of membership upon request.

  Additional Regular Associate Member benefits:
  – Discounted participation fees for conferences, symposia, workshops, and other events organized by the Association.
  – Priority consideration for inclusion in joint research projects and collaboration programs.

  *Basic associate members may request up to two (2) iThenticate similarity checks per calendar month for their own academic or professional manuscripts, including co-authored works. The service is provided upon written email request to the UdEkoM Balkans Secretariat and is intended exclusively for the member’s ongoing research or publication activities.

Issues: If there is any issue arising before the final decision can be reached, the Scientific Committee will discuss it promptly.