Call for Doctoral Consortium

PhD students working in the area of Business Process Management (BPM) are invited to submit their proposals for participation in the BPM Doctoral Consortium, which will be held on Sunday, 13 September, 2020, in conjunction with the 18th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2020) in Seville, Spain.

The Doctoral Consortium has the following objectives:

• To provide valuable feedback on students’ research proposals
• To provide helpful guidance on students’ research topics and methods
• To provide students with opportunities to meet and interact with experienced researchers in the area of Business Process Management
• To promote the development of a community of scholars including both peers and mentors for future careers

We welcome submissions to a wide range of topics related to BPM, specifically spanning different diciplines, such as information systems, computer science and organizational and management science. We invite contributions to more technical topics as well as contributions to more management related topics. Research may target at increasing efficiency as well as innovativeness of organizations and ecosystems. There are no limits as to the topic and research methods per se. Participants of the DC are asked to make a strong case on the relevance of their work for BPM research and practice. The PhD candidates of the accepted proposals are expected to present their research at the Doctoral Consortium and to discuss their plans with other PhD candidates and senior researchers. We welcome submissions representing a broad spectrum of research topics related to BPM which already have a well-defined research topic and still benefit from open discussions on continuing their research. Participants will benefit from the advice of senior researchers in the field and from the interaction with peers being at a similar stage of their careers.

Submission

PhD students interested in engaging in detailed discussions on their research at the Doctoral Consortium are invited to submit an extended abstract that outlines their thesis work and clearly describes:

• The well-defined research problem being addressed
• The overall picture of and reasoning for their research design
• The research methodology and techniques being applied
• The (intended) solution being proposed and its validity
• The relation of the work to the state of the art in BPM research
• The overall state of the project, open points, and problems identified threatening the method, results, or ambition

The extended abstract should be discussed with and approved by the respective PhD supervisor before submission. It should be written in English using maximum 4 pages (excluding the bibliography) in Springer’s LNBIP format. It should be submitted (as a single PDF file) by midnight (AoE) by 1 June 2020 via the BPM 2020 Doctoral Consortium EasyChair Submission Website. Accepted submissions will be published as online CEUR proceedings.

Review Process

Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium Committee. The reviewers will assess each proposal based on its originality, its potential for advancing the BPM field, and whether the work is at a stage where the PhD candidate can benefit from participating in the consortium. Rejected submissions will receive written feedback. Confidentiality of submissions will be maintained throughout the review process.

Notification

Authors will be notified of the result of their submission by 3 July 2020. Accepted doctoral candidates will receive instructions on how to submit a camera-ready copy of their proposal and will receive information on the preparation of the presentation (see “At the Conference” next).

Acceptance to the Doctoral Consortium is an honor. In turn, accepted candidates are expected to fully commit themselves to the success of the consortium by being open to new ideas and suggestions and providing ideas and suggestions to other participants. All accepted contributions will be circulated among the participants about one week before the consortium.

At the Conference

Attendance of the Doctoral Consortium for accepted students is free of charge. Accepted submissions will be presented at the Doctoral Consortium, which is a venue open only to participants.

The Doctoral Consortium will provide a full-day program centered around helping PhD students find their path through their PhD project.

PhD students will be working in smaller groups together with senior researchers. Each student will present his or her work to the group with substantial time provided for discussions and questions by participating researchers and other students. Attention: Please present your work using whiteboard and pen (not through slides and projector). This allows the other participants to discuss the essential parts of your thesis. Please prepare for not more than 20 minutes of presentation. The remainder of the sessions will leave plenty of time and room for discussions on the project, methodology, and also allow for break-outs for discussing more detailed or technical aspects of a project.

Also, PhD students and senior researchers join together to discuss experiences of doing a PhD project, share challenges faces, and to learn from each other about lessons, tricks, and tips learned.

All participants are expected to attend every session of the consortium. Additionally, participants are encouraged to attend the main conference (registration fee for the main conference has to be covered by the participants).

Key Dates

• Extended abstract submission: 1 June 2020 15 June 2020 (extended)
• Notification of acceptance: 15 July, 2020
• Camera-ready copy: 20 July, 2020
• Consortium: 13 September, 2020

Deadlines correspond to anywhere on earth (‘AoE’ or ‘UTC-12′)

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

• Félix García (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)
• Manfred Reichert (University of Ulm, Germany)
• Jan vom Brocke (University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein)

Doctoral Consortium Committee

• Pedro Álvarez, University of Zaragoza
• Andrea Burattin, Technical University of Denmark
• Maximilian Röglinger, Universität Bayreuth
• Theresa Schmiedel, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland
• Stefan Schönig, Universit of Regensburg
• Peter Trkman, University of Ljubljana
• Amy Van Loy, Ghent University
• Barbara Weber, Universität St. Gallen
• Mathias Weske, Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam
• Moe Wynn, Queensland University of Technology