PhD Forum – Basic information

SST 2026 conference will host a PhD Forum on Friday, October 30, 2026. The PhD Forum will take place at the SST 2026 conference venue – Hotel Osijek in Osijek, Croatia.

The PhD Forum provides an opportunity for doctoral students to present their work in the areas of ICT related to the SST 2026 conference topics to a wider community of researchers from academia and industry. The forum aims to encourage interaction and networking among doctoral students, as well as with the audience.

The PhD Forum will be organized as a poster session, preceded by a fast-paced introduction by each student that offers a preview of the posters. Each student will be given a strictly-timed 2-minutes’ slot to present a “pitch talk” about her/his research. The purpose of the pitch talk is to provide a brief outline of one’s doctoral research work, with the goal to raise awareness and generate further discussion over the poster session and coffee break that follow.

Doctoral students are invited to submit a two-page extended abstract for review and possible inclusion in the PhD Forum program. The abstracts should be formatted according to the PhD Forum paper submission instructions and templates:

Tex template

MS Word template

The abstracts should be submitted before the submission deadline via EasyChair The extended abstract should contain the title, the names and affiliations of the student and her/his advisor(s), the summary of research goals/results (of maximum 2 pages), the research topic presentation, graphical illustrations to aid the presentation, and the list of references. Please when submitting your paper, under “Topics” section, select PhDForum.

The authors of accepted submissions will be asked to prepare a poster, to be personally presented by the doctoral student at the Forum. The poster should be formatted according to the template and printed on standard A1 size paper (594 x 841 mm, portrait orientation).

To keep within the time limits of PhD Forum as a whole, the number of PhD presentations/posters will be limited to 20. All submissions will be reviewed by the PhD Forum Program & Organizing Committee based on relevance to the conference, innovativeness, and quality of presentation.

All accepted and presented submissions will be published in the Book of Abstracts of the SST 2026 PhD Forum. All posters will be exhibited in the conference area during the entire SST 2026 conference.

For authors of accepted presentations/posters, the PhD Forum registration fee is 150 EUR and it includes: 1) PhD Forum participation; 2) Book of Abstracts (electronic version); 3) access to other SST 2026 conference sessions on the day of the PhD Forum; 4) coffee breaks; 5) conference luncheons on the day of the PhD Forum;