EMVA Young Professional Award 2026 – Call for Application

Prestigious industry award with prize money, presentation at EMVA Business Conference in Stockholm and free pass for European Machine Vision Forum 2026

Barcelona,​ January 16^th, 2026. It is the goal of the European Machine Vision Association to support further innovation in our industry, to contribute to the important aspect of dedicated machine vision education, and to provide a bridge between research and industry. The EMVA Young Professional Award is an annual award endowed with 1,500 Euros to honor the outstanding and innovative work of a student or a young professional in the field of machine vision or image processing.

With the EMVA Young Professional Award, the EMVA specifically encourages students and young scientists to focus on challenges in the field of machine vision and to apply latest research results and findings in computer vision to the practical needs of our industry. Applicants for the EMVA Young Professional Award 2026 are hereby invited to submit their work. Among all papers the EMVA Board of Directors, representing the European Machine Vision Industry, will select the winner of the award.

The criteria of the works to be presented are:

• Outstanding or innovative work in the field of vision technology. Industrial relevance and collaboration with a company during the work is required. The targeted industry is free of choice.
• The work (master thesis or PHD thesis or equivalent level research) must have been undertaken within the last 18 months at, or in collaboration with, a European institution. Meanwhile the student may have entered the professional field.

To apply please submit the following materials to the EMVA President, Dr Chris Yates, at ypa@emva.org latest until 5 April, 2026:

• A two-page abstract summarizing the innovation and the intended commercial benefit
• A one-page CV
• A copy of the master thesis or PhD thesis. If not yet finished or under publication restrictions,
• please provide at least one accepted publication
• Supportive letters of research supervisors and/or any collaborating company are welcomed but not mandatory.

More information at https://www.emva.org/news/young-professional-award-26-call-for-application/.

The winner of the award will be announced at the EMVA Business Conference 2026 taking place 18 – 20 June in Stockholm, Sweden, and will have the opportunity to present the awarded work to the machine vision industry leaders and special press representatives. In addition to the honor of the EMVA Young Professional Award endowed with 1,500 Euros and the publicity for the research work is a free conference pass for the EMVA Business Conference as well as the coverage of all travel cost to Stockholm and a free pass for the  European Machine Vision Forum taking place in autumn 2026.