Call for Doctoral Symposium Papers

Overview

The Doctoral Symposium is a concentrated half-day event that will be held during IEEE/IFIP CNSM 2026, 26-30 October 2026, in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain. Ph.D. students present their ongoing research interests/plans/results to a panel of researchers in the field and receive specific constructive feedback, including opportunities to meet with mentors one-on-one.

The Doctoral Symposium also includes some enlightenment talks on the development or improvement of skills expected of Ph.D. students (writing research papers, presentation of compelling research talks, etc.).

We encourage students to submit research description papers that clearly motivate, discuss, and summarize their Ph.D. research.

Accepted papers (four pages maximum) will be published in the conference proceedings and be included in the online CNSM conference proceedings and archived in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library once presented by the Ph.D. students during the conference.

Eligibility and Topics

Ideal candidates will be in the early or mid stages of their Ph.D. and should have a solid idea of their direction and topic. Nevertheless, it is expected that the ongoing work has room for improvement. The Doctoral Symposium welcomes applicants from a broad range of disciplines, including Management of 6G Networks and Network 2030, Management of Smart Vertical Systems in the Industry 4.0 Era, Artificial Intelligence techniques for Network and Service Management, Management of Softwarized Networks, Software-Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization, Service Function Chaining, VR, Cyber Security & Cyber Resiliency, Service and Application Management, and related fields.

Submission Guidelines

To apply to the Doctoral Symposium, please submit the following two documents through EDAS at https://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=35030&track=136434

1. Research description paper of 4 pages in length, including references, using the IEEE 2-column format. The manuscript must clearly motivate, discuss, and summarize the proposed Ph.D. research, describe how the adopted approach fits into and advances research in related fields, and report on your progress. You may additionally focus on a more specific area of the research if desired. In the concluding section, you should identify 2 questions/areas for improvement that you would like to discuss during the session.
2. A one-page Curriculum Vitae.

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: August 12th, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: August 28th, 2026
Final Camera Ready: September 25th, 2026

Doctoral Symposium Co-Chairs

Luciano Paschoal Gaspary, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Marco Polverini, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy