Call for participation:
Desautels Managing Disruptive Technologies Prize
The Analytics, Advanced Digital Technologies and AI Initiative (AAAI) at Desautels Faculty of Management, 黑料不打烊 University is organizing a 鈥榬esearch ideation鈥� contest for the Winter 2025 semester.
Overview
The AAAI Initiative aims to inspire Desautels PhD students to develop creative new research ideas in their field, broadly linked to themes of analytics, advanced digital technologies, and artificial Intelligence. The new research ideas should explore how these disruptive technologies could change either the nature of business and management or the objectives and methods of research in their field. Entrants are encouraged to be creative and explore beyond the boundaries of their field. The idea submitted must not be from an ongoing/planned project.
The winning entry will receive a $1,000 prize and certificate awarded in early April 2025. All entrants will receive certificates of participation. The contest is open to all PhD students at Desautels Faculty of Management at 黑料不打烊 University.
How to participate
Any PhD students currently enrolled at Desautels Faculty of Management can participate. Each student can submit up to one research proposal in the form of an extended abstract no longer than one page, excluding references (tables, figures, and appendices are included in the page limit and are discouraged). The document must be printable on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, must use 11-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins on all four sides, and must be double-spaced. The subject matter should be broadly related to analytics, advanced digital technologies, and artificial Intelligence. The content should include the proposed research question and the approach to answer that question.
Entries must be submitted as a single document in pdf format by 23:59 on 23 March 2025 to聽aaai.submission [at] mcgill.ca (subject: Research%20Ideation%20Contest) .
Up to 5 students will be invited to make a 10-minute presentation of their ideas on 4 April 2025. The winner and 2 honourable mentions will be announced on 7 April 2025.
Evaluation criteria
The submission will be evaluated on the following criteria:
- Novelty and Creativity: The originality of the research idea and its potential to bring new perspectives to the field or area of research. Note, the AAAI Initiative has faculty from every area on its committee, so your proposal will be reviewed by an area expert.
- Relevance to AAAI: You can find out more about the initiative and its aims here.
- Feasibility and Rigor: Can the proposed research be carried out? And if so, would it achieve meaningful, valid results?
- Potential Impact and Contribution: Does the research idea address a clear and important challenge in its area? Importance is judged by business and societal value.
- Clarity of Presentation and Writing: Proposals may be submitted in English or French, but must be coherent, well-written, and technically accurate.
Important dates
- Submission due date: 23 March 2025
- Presentation invitation: 28 March 2025
- Presentation date: 4 April 2025 at 4.00pm (BRONF 310)
- Winner announcement: 7 April 2025
Tips: Getting Started
The contest offers a great opportunity to get feedback on new research ideas from expert faculty and to win a prize that would significantly bolster your academic CV. To help you get started, we offer some advice:
- Carefully review the theme of the contest: Think about how the area of AAAI intersects with your current research ideas in a new way. AAAI is changing many aspects of how business research and practice are conducted. Perhaps text analytics will open up new avenues for research in unstructured data? Or ethical concerns about AI usage will raise new policy questions in your field?
- Get creative: One exciting element of the Managing Disruptive Technologies Contest is that you must think beyond your existing work (without an obligation to do this new research, yet). Use this freedom to push boundaries and think about what you could do with more resources, support, and data than you have right now.
- Focus on clarity: Although the idea should be new, it must also be specific, clear, and compelling. Refine your initial idea by talking to your colleagues, advisors, and with generative AI.
- Present a clear plan: Note, feasibility is an important judging criteria. The research idea should be novel and creative, but is must also be reasonably achievable by an academic! Perhaps offering to invent the next generative of GPTs is not the best idea鈥�
- Be concise and focused: The limit of single page has been introduced for force you to focus on a single idea. Don鈥檛 offer many different directions and proposals.
