We are proud to announce that three EurAI awards have been awarded to Benelux AI researchers.
Firstly, the 2025 EurAI Artificial Intelligence Dissertation Award has been awarded to Jaap Jumelet for his PhD “Finding Structure in Language Models”, after winning the 2026 Dissertation Award of the Benelux Association for Artificial Intelligence (BNVKI) earlier this year. In the 2025 EurAI Dissertation Award edition, 17 theses from 12 countries were submitted. The jury consisted of 23 EurAI Fellows. Jaap defended this dissertation at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) at the University of Amsterdam, supervised by dr. Jelle Zuidema (promotor) and prof. dr. Raquel Fernández (copromotor) of the University of Amsterdam. The thesis was praised for developing several creative new methods, proposing a rigorous framework for evaluation, a solid methodology, a well-thought-out organisation, cross-disciplinarity and clear writing.
In addition, Jesse Davis (KU Leuven) has been awarded a 2026 EurAI Fellowships for his contributions to machine learning and their application to sports analytics. Jesse Davis has made significant contributions to Machine Learning, contributed greatly in the International and European machine learning and AI communities, and achieved meaningful societal impact through his research.
Finally, Professor Luc de Raedt has been awarded the EurAI Distinguished Service Award 2026 for his contributions to the field of artificial intelligence through sustained service in scientific research, shaping and organising scientific processes on the European and international level, and unifying research communities.
