Takács thesis award

Takács Award for PhD thesis on "Queueing Theory and its Applications"

The Takács Award is an award presented to doctoral dissertations in recognition of outstanding contributions to queueing theory, including the development of theory, methodological advances, computational aspects and applications.

The award is accompanied by a certificate, a cash prize of 1000€, and an invitation (travel costs, accommodation, and registration fee covered) to deliver a plenary talk at the ECQT conference.

Eligibility: Open to candidates from all over the world for theses defended between January 1st, 2024, and December 31, 2025. There are restrictions neither on the nationality of the applicant, nor on the location of the degree-awarding institution.

Deadline for applications: Friday, February 27, 2026.

Contact: Sabine Wittevrongel <sabine.wittevrongel@ugent.be>.

Sponsorship: For the 2026 edition, the Takács award is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through Gravitation-grant NETWORKS-024.002.003.

Application procedure

By February 27, 2026, applicants must upload the following documents as a single PDF file:

1. A three-page summary of the dissertation in English highlighting the significance, contribution, impact, and novelty of the dissertation. Please respect the following formatting constraints: Times New Roman, Arial or similar, at least font size 11, margins (2.0cm side and 1.5cm top and bottom), single line spacing, single column.
2. A publication list of the applicant related to the dissertation.
3. An electronic copy of the manuscript in English.

When you are ready, please submit your application selecting "Takács Thesis Award" in the dropdown menu. Under "Title", please indicate the title of your PhD dissertation. 

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by March 31, 2026.

Selection committee

The ECQT steering committee has appointed the following selection committee:

• Urtzi Ayesta, CNRS-IRIT and University of the Basque Country
• Herwig Bruneel, Ghent University (chair) 
• Douglas G Down, McMaster University
• Antonis Economou, University of Athens
• Michel Mandjes, University of Amsterdam
• Tuan Phung-Duc, University of Tsukuba
• Maria Vlasiou, University of Twente

About Lajos Takács

Prof. Lajos Takács (August 21, 1924–December 4, 2015) was a pioneer in queueing theory, and in particular he was the first to introduce semi-Markov processes in queueing theory. During his extensive career, he supervised over twenty PhD theses, and he authored over 200 mathematical publications, including five books on Stochastic Processes, Queueing Theory and Probability.

For more details on the life and the achievements of Prof. Takács, see:

• N.H. Bingham, The work of Lajos Takács on probability theory, Journal of Applied Probability, Volume 31, Issue A (1994), pp. 29-39
• O. Boxma and S. Zacks, Lajos Takács, Queueing Systems, Volume 82 (2016), pp. 1-4
• J.H. Dshalalow and R. Syski, Lajos Takács and his work, Journal of Applied Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis, Volume 7, Issue 3 (1994), pp. 215-237
• A.M. Haghighi, Lajos Takács’ life and contributions to combinatorics, Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal, Volume 10, Issue 2 (2015), pp. 636–658

Laureates

The recipient of the 2026 Takács Award is

Daan Rutten

for his thesis entitled Compatibility, Predictions and Optimization in Large-scale Online Decision Making. His award citation reads

"for the design and optimization of solution techniques for fundamental problems in large-scale service systems, using a combination of tools from probability, stochastic processes and algorithms."

In view of the high-quality submissions, the selection committee also named a runner-up (the "silver medal"). The runner-up of the 2026 Takács Award is

Diletta Olliaro

for her thesis entitled Models for Throughput Maximisation in Distributed Systems. Her award citation reads

"for the queueing-theory based design and analysis of advanced performance evaluation models and efficient resource management solutions of highly distributed systems."