News from IFAC

IFAC Congress Paper Prizes:
Announcement and Call for Nominations

The International Federation of Automatic Control awards several best paper prizes for papers accepted and presented at the IFAC World Congress in Busan:

 The IFAC Young Author Theory Paper Prize is given for outstanding technical contributions in the broad area of control, systems, and automation theory at an IFAC Congress by an author who is younger than 30 years.

 The IFAC Young Author Application Paper Prize is given for outstanding technical contributions in the broad area of control applications at an IFAC Congress by an author who is younger than 30 years.

 Nominations for both Young Author Awards can be made by any supervisor or colleague of the young author, or by a senior person. The nomination should highlight the candidate’s outstanding contribution and certify that he/she satisfies the age criterion. Self-nominations are not allowed.

The deadline for submitting nominations for both Young Author Prizes is: 15 April 2026. Nominations for both Young Author Prizes need to be sent to the chair of the selection committee for the awards Carlos Canudas de Wit at carlos.canudas-de-wit@gipsa-lab.fr.

The IFAC Interactive Theory Paper Prize is given for the best interactive paper accepted and presented at the IFAC World Congress in the broad area of control, systems, and automation theory.

The IFAC Interactive Application Paper Prize is given for the best interactive paper accepted and presented at the IFAC World Congress in the broad area of control applications.

All interactive papers that are accepted for the IFAC World Congress are considered by the Selection Committee for the two Interactive Paper Prizes. No nominations are possible.

The IFAC Application Paper Prize is given for outstanding technical contributions at an IFAC Congress in the area of control applications. All papers with a clear application focus, that are accepted for the IFAC World Congress, are considered by the Selection Committee for the Application Paper Prize. No nominations are possible.

For questions concerning the awards or the procedures please consult the website of the IFAC World Congress, the IFAC website or contact the IFAC Awards Chair Frank Allgöwer at frank.allgower@ist.uni-stuttgart.de.

A few members of the IFAC community have reported receiving a message signed by "Award Committee Panel".

This message is NOT from or on behalf of IFAC or anyone or any entity that is authorized to use the IFAC name, nor the name of IFAC-PapersOnLine, IFAC Awards, or IFAC's publisher Elsevier.

Please do not respond to the email, do not submit any information, etc.

If you receive any message where you are unsure if it is legitimately from/on behalf of IFAC please contact the IFAC Secretariat.

Report deadlines:

• TC chairs: Please submit your annual activity report to your Coordinating Committee Chair and the IFAC Secretariat by: 1 March 2026.
• CC Chairs and ordinary Technical Board members: Please submit your summary report by:
  15 March 2026.
• Awards, Membership, Activity Fund, Distinguished Lecturer Program, Education Activities and Diversity & Inclusion Committee Chairs: Please submit your annual activity report by:
  15 March 2026.
• The reports of the CB Chair, TB Chair, PB Chair, VP Operations/Secretary, VP Finances, and IFAC President should be submitted to the IFAC Secretariat by: 31 March 2026.

The prize consists of a monetary prize and a certificate. This prize was created in 1986 and renamed the Harold Chestnut Control Engineering Textbook Prize in 2002, in honor of IFAC’s first president.

Each nomination must be made by a nominator who is responsible for providing full and accurate information. Any person is eligible to serve as a nominator, with the exception of the chair/s and members of the Harold Chestnut Control Engineering Textbook Prize Selection Committee (Chair: Christopher Edwards, Vice-Chair: Bozenna Pasik-Duncan Members: Antonio Visioli, Francoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, Miroslav Krstic, Iven Mareels, Henk Nijmeijer, Si Zhao Joe Qin, Joao Manoel Gomes da Silva) and the IFAC Awards Chair (Frank Allgöwer). Please note that self-nominations are not allowed.

The Harold Chestnut Control Engineering Textbook Prize Selection Committee of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) calls for nominations for the Triennial Harold Chestnut Prize.

The Prize is awarded to the author(s) of a control engineering textbook that has most contributed to the education of control engineers. The Prize, consisting of a monetary award and a certificate, will be presented at the 23rd IFAC World Congress that will be held in

Busan, Republic of Korea from 23-28 August 2026.

To be considered, nominations must relate to books that are:
1. Written in English (the official IFAC working language)
2. Published between 1 September 2017 and 31 July 2023.
3. No more than one IFAC Control Engineering Textbook Prize may be given for any particular textbook.
4. Textbooks (co-) authored by the chair/s and members of the Harold Chestnut Control Engineering Textbook Prize Selection Committee and by the IFAC Awards Chair are not eligible.

Nominations should include:
a)     A nomination letter that states the full title, name(s) and address of the author(s), name of the textbook, date of publication, and name and address of the textbook’s publisher;
b) Evidence of the contribution/s of the textbook to the education of control engineers; and
c) Any additional information that may support the judging process, as per the selection criteria listed below.

All nominations will be evaluated using the selection criteria:
• Originality and innovation
• General content in terms of the topics covered
• Clear applications to real problems
• Style:
- Presentation, readability and clarity in relation to the content
• Meeting educational objectives:
- Clear statement of what students should be able to do
- Worked examples and exercises
- Software support
- Multi-disciplinary examples (cross-boundary applications of control)
- Use by practicing engineers

To be considered, nominations must be received by 1 February 2026. All submissions should be sent via e-mail as a single PDF file containing all required information to the selection committee chair Christopher Edwards at C.Edwards@exeter.ac.uk.

If the prize-winning textbook is written by more than one author, the monetary component of the prize will be equally split among the authors with each author receiving a certificate. The winner(s) will be notified well in advance to allow for planning their attendance in Busan. Winner/s are kindly requested to not inform anyone of the win prior to the Congress, in particularly the textbook’s publisher.