The Young Scientist Award (YSA) provides a more general young scientist program in comparison with the Best Student Presentation Award. Since 2026, to qualify applications for the YSA, the applicant should pay attention to the following new requirements.

• The applicant must have PhD degree in science/engineering and under 35 years of age by the conference date.
• The applicant must be listed as the first author as well as the presenting author of an abstract submitted for oral presentation.
• A curriculum vitae with the publication list must be submitted together with the abstract.
• A full-length paper of 5-10 pages should be submitted by the full-length paper submission deadline and registered by the pre-registration deadline.
• This full-length paper can be either unpublished or published within one year before the conference dates. If it is an arXiv paper, it should be also archived within one year before the conference. For this PIERS 2026 in Suzhou, the published date should be after July 26, 2025. 
• The YSA full papers are to be reviewed only by the judges. During the full-length paper submission process, authors can choose to publish or not to publish their papers in PIERS Proceedings. PIERS Proceedings will be submitted to IEEE Xplore for publication within one month after the conference dates. 

Awardees will be selected after peer-review of the applications by the PIERS Young Scientist Program Committee.

List of Young Scientist Award