MMSys'25 Doctoral Symposium (DS) will be part of the conference in South Africa for people studying towards a doctoral
degree in a field relevant to the themes of MMSys (refer to the calls for papers on the various tracks and workshops).
MMSys is an inclusive, growing, and interdisciplinary community, so if you are not sure whether the specifics of your
research are in scope, then: (a) they probably are, and (b) please email the chairs, and they will do their best to
advise you.
If you are a doctoral student who has found yourself reading or referencing work presented at MMSys in the past, or if
the scope of MMSys makes you feel that this is a community that you would benefit from being part of, then we would love
you to apply to meet us in South Africa. If you are successful in your application for a place in the DS, you will be
invited to attend the rest of MMSys'25, the world's leading international research conference on multimedia systems.
The DS is a forum for you to share your work and ideas with fellow PhD students and more experienced researchers in your
field. You will get the chance to present your plans, ideas, results, and more excitingly, ask your questions; and
request advice from the MMsys community. More specifically, the DS is an on-site event with two main activities. Early
in the week, we plan to host a breakfast plenary session, allowing you to meet your mentor, who is a senior member of
the MMSys community. You will briefly introduce your proposal to mentors and other attendees. Your mentor will give you
in-depth feedback and address your questions. After the plenary session, you will have time to discuss your proposal
with others during the conference, especially during the DS poster session scheduled later that week. In addition to
your mentor, you will get feedback and suggestions from the community at large.
We invite
middle and
early stage PhD students to attend the DS. If you are still struggling with your PhD research
questions, or if you have established your questions and have still got at least a year of work ahead of you before the
submission of your dissertation, you can benefit from the DS. A proposal submission is required to apply for the DS.
Your submissions will be peer-reviewed. If accepted, you will be invited to present and discuss at the DS at the
conference venue. You can choose whether your proposal should be published as a paper in the ACM DL if it is accepted or
whether it is not ready for publication yet. Each DS proposal submission gets one of the following decisions: (i)
accepted for presentations and proceedings, (ii) accepted for presentations, and (iii) rejected.
Take part in the MMSys'25 DS by submitting a proposal of up to four pages (PDF format, excluding references) by the
submission deadline (students are encouraged to submit early to start the mentoring early potentially). The proposal
should include the author's name and affiliation in ACM-style format. The proposal should be well organized and
structured in a way that demonstrates the links between the concepts presented. The proposal should clearly specify:
- A real-world problem that relates to and motivates the PhD
- The concrete research challenge that the (proposed) PhD is addressing and how this fits into the bigger picture of other research that addresses the real-world problem
- The objectives and scope of the research
- The main contribution(s) of the research to multimedia systems and a justification why the contribution will lead to a PhD
- Limitation in the state-of-the-art that you intend to address, and if applicable, first results, including an evaluation with respect to the state-of-the-art
If your accepted proposal should be published as a paper in the ACM DL, you must also include:
- The methods used to achieve the objectives and the proposed solution(s), including a brief description of the work done so far and a tentative plan for future work
You also need:
- A letter of support from your supervisor or mentor
If you have any questions on the research paper track, feel free to contact the chairs (ChengHsin
chsu [at] cs.nthu.edu.tw & Carsten
griff [at] ifi.uio.no).