VIGINUM – INRIA AWARD
“COMBATING INFORMATION MANIPULATION”

 

VIGINUM and Inria are jointly launching a scientific award aimed at recognizing excellence in research in the field of digital sciences applied to combating information manipulation (IM). The award will highlight technical and methodological advances that improve the detection, understanding, and countering of information interference, whether cognitive, technological, or social in nature. More broadly, Inria and Viginum seek to make this award a European benchmark, encouraging scientific innovation and interdisciplinarity in the fight against information manipulation.

Specifically, the Award will recognize each year three scientific articles that have been published or accepted for publication in a scientific journal or in the proceedings of a national or international conference:

• Jury Award: €5,000
• Innovation Award: €2,000
• Young Researcher Award: €1,000

The Award is open to adult researchers and targets articles published or accepted for publication within the three years preceding the submission date for the Award.

Articles submitted to the jury must meet the following criteria:

• Be written in French or English;
• Describe a research result, a technical innovation, a didactic presentation of the state of the art, or an initiative aimed at promoting interdisciplinarity;
• Be accompanied by a presentation text (in French or English) that explains in a didactic manner the outcomes of the work and its current or potential impact in the field of combating information manipulation (maximum 4,000 characters);
• The author(s) of the article must be nationals of a European Union Member State;
• At least one of the authors must be affiliated with a public or private research laboratory located within the European Union.

Many topics related to information manipulation may be addressed, including but not limited to the following:

Data science and artificial intelligence:

• Data mining,
• Machine learning,
• Handling of massive databases (big data),
• Detection of coordinated behaviors;

Computational social sciences:

• Operation of online platform algorithms (content recommendation),
• Cognitive influence and manipulation (biases, framing),
• Dissemination of manipulated content and its impacts,
• Construction and manipulation of mental representations;

Signal processing:

• Filtering and information extraction,
• Audio and video compression,
• Denormalization and amplification of weak signals;

Computer science (algorithms):

• Sorting, search, and indexing algorithms,
• Structured manipulation of graphs and networks,
• Compression and transformation of formats.

Submitted articles must present work carried out, at least in part, in a research center located in one of the countries of the European Union, and must necessarily focus on improving the detection of and protection of the nation against foreign digital interference.

To apply, please register via the “Registration” tab and then submit your complete application file via the “Submit my article” tab.