Applications are open

Yandex Scientific Award

The Ilya Segalovich Award was established to support young researchers and the scientific community in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan
Apply for the award
Nominate an academic supervisor
  • 19.01–01.07.2022
    Award application period
  • 02.07–15.08.2022
    Interviews
  • Autumn 2022
    Awarding successful applicants
Yandex awards the prize for work in scientific areas where it is an expert. Yandex researchers are cutting-edge innovators working on problems that don’t yet have a solution. The algorithms, methods, and technologies they create are used in many Yandex products, including Yandex Search, the voice assistant Alice, and self-driving cars
  • Speech recognition and speech synthesis
    Research that helps voice assistants understand speech and respond to users.
  • Computer vision
    Research that helps drones navigate in space and enables security systems to identify people at a glance.
  • Information search
    Methods to deal with huge amounts of data and identify patterns in it.
  • Natural language processing and machine translation
    Research thanks to which online translators understand hundreds of different languages and language models generate texts.
  • Machine learning
    The foundation of research into artificial intelligence. State-of-the-art models and algorithms.

Candidate requirements

Young researchers

  • Fourth- to sixth-year students and postgraduates studying on a public scholarship at a university or research institute in Russia, Belarus, or Kazakhstan
  • Authors of publications or presentations delivered at conferences, published in conference materials, or mentioned in conference programs
  • Continuing education next year

Academic supervisors

  • Work with students on theses or dissertations at a university or research institute in Russia, Belarus, or Kazakhstan
  • No publications over the past two years affiliated with any for-profit companies, universities, or research institutes in countries besides Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan

What the award provides

For young researchers

  • A cash prize of 1 million rubles (before personal income tax). One-off payment
  • The opportunity to attend an international conference on artificial intelligence i The choice of conference must be agreed with the award organizer. Trip costs covered up to 500,000 rubles
  • 10,000-ruble credit to use on the Yandex.Toloka crowdsourcing platform i Datasets collected with the grant’s help should be made publicly available on the Yandex.Toloka website
  • 100,000-ruble credit to use on Yandex DataSphere

Academic supervisors

  • A cash prize of 1 million rubles (before personal income tax)

Award winners

2021
2020
2019

Young researchers

  • Alexander Grishin
    Alexander GrishinHSE
    Reinforcement learning, meta-learning
  • Dmitry Kovalev
    Dmitry KovalevMIPT
    Optimization methods for machine learning
  • Alexander Korotin
    Alexander KorotinSkoltech
    Generative models, online machine learning, online aggregating algorithms
  • Oleg Svidchenko
    Oleg SvidchenkoHSE (St. Petersburg)
    Reinforcement learning, deep learning, model-based RL

Academic supervisors

  • Alexey Artyomov
    Alexey ArtyomovSkoltech
    Computer vision, three-dimensional computer vision, neural networks
  • Alexey Shpilman
    Alexey ShpilmanHSE (St. Petersburg)
    Applied machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning

Award Committee

  • Arkady Volozh
    Arkady VolozhCEO of Yandex N.V.
  • Mikhail Parakhin
    Mikhail ParakhinVice President of Technology, Microsoft
  • Elena Bunina
    Elena BuninaYandex CEO in Russia and Yandex HR Director, PhD
  • Mikhail Bilenko
    Mikhail BilenkoFormer head of the Yandex Machine Intelligence and Research Department, PhD
  • Ilya Muchnik
    Ilya MuchnikProfessor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Research Director of the Yandex School of Data Analysis
  • Alexander Krainov
    Alexander KrainovHead of the Yandex Machine Intelligence Laboratory
  • Stanislav Smirnov
    Stanislav SmirnovProfessor at the University of Geneva, Saint Petersburg State University, Skoltech, PhD

FAQ

  • Are the Ilya Segalovich Award and the Ilya Segalovich Scholarship the same thing?

    No, the Ilya Segalovich Scholarship is awarded to Higher School of Economics students for outstanding studies or success in scientific activity. The Ilya Segalovich Award is a program to encourage researchers and academic supervisors in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

  • I’m a final-year graduate student. Do I qualify for the award?

    No, unfortunately, you don’t. Continuing education in the next year is a prerequisite for all candidates.

  • I’m studying at a non-state university. Can I become an award winner?

    Yes, you can apply for the award if you are engaged in research in machine learning, computer vision, information retrieval, natural language processing and machine translation, or speech recognition and synthesis at your university.

  • My academic achievements don’t yet meet the requirements for the award. Can I only nominate my supervisor?

    Yes, you can only fill out an application to nominate your supervisor.

  • I already received the Segalovich Award. Can I apply again?

    Yes, you can apply again.

  • I’m studying at a foreign university. Can I win the Segalovich Award?

    No, unfortunately, you don’t. Studying at a university in Russia, Belarus, or Kazakhstan is a prerequisite for all candidates.