Signal Processing Cup

The current Call for Proposals for the SP Cup can be found on the SPS Call for Proposals page. Please note that your proposal must be endorsed by one of the TCs. For endorsement, you must submit your proposal for endorsement to the SPS Technical Committee (TC) that best fits your proposal by the deadline in the current SP Cup Call for Proposals for the SP Cup. You can find the Society’s TCs located on the Technical Committees page on the SPS website.

Technical Committees interested in submitting a call for proposal for the upcoming SP Cup competitions, please visit the Technical Committees page for more information.

Each team participating should be composed of one faculty member or someone with a PhD degree employed by the university (the Supervisor), at most one graduate student (the Tutor), and at least three, but no more than ten undergraduate students. At least three of the undergraduate team members must hold student memberships of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Undergraduate students who are in the first two years of their college studies, as well as high school students who are capable of contributing are welcome to participate in a team. A participant cannot be on more than one team.

Team Composition

• Each team MUST be composed of: (i) One faculty member (the Supervisor) and (ii) At least 3 but no more than 10 undergraduates; Optionally (iii) At most one graduate student (the Tutor).
  • At least three of the undergraduate team members must be SPS student members at the time of team registration, and maintain this status until the end of the competition.
• Further definitions of each team position are as follows:
  • Faculty (Supervisor): A faculty member or someone with a PhD degree employed by the university. Postdocs and research associates are not considered as faculty members.
  • Graduate Student (Tutor): A graduate student is a student having earned at least a 4-year University degree at the time of submission. Please note: Tutors are not eligible to receive travel grants or prize money.
  • Undergraduate: An undergraduate student is a student without a 4-year degree.
• Team members cannot be changed after the team registration deadline.
• At least one undergraduate team member must be in attendance (in-person) of the final round of the competition held at the respective conference (ICASSP or ICIP) to present the team’s work.*
• Students receiving the travel grant and prize payments MUST be active SPS members at time of team formation and maintain their membership throughout the competition. Signal Processing Society membership can be added here.

Team ineligibility (Further clarification)

Specific team ineligibility, in addition to the above. Any of these criteria will result in the team being disqualified/ineligible to continue in the competition:

• Teams that are composed with 50% or more of its members being students who have previously participated on a finalist team of another SPS competition within the last calendar year are not eligible. For example, if two of four undergraduate team members participated as members of a finalist team during the 2023 SP Cup, they will not be eligible to participate on any team for the 2023 VIP Cup.
• Teams with the exact same member composition of a previously placed team in the top 3 of another SPS competition within the last calendar year are not eligible.
• Any team member who has placed in the top three teams of any SPS competition held during the previous conference and/or calendar year, i.e. a member from one of the 3 finalist teams of the 2023 SP Cup (at ICASSP) will not be eligible to participate in the 2023 VIP Cup (at ICIP).
• Team members cannot simultaneously participate in more than one competition at the same time.
• Team members cannot participate on more than one team at the same time.

Important notice: Upon registering a team for the competition, the team must commit to at least one undergraduate team member representing the team by attending the physical competition and participating in the final round of the competition at the physical conference. Should a team not be able to participate physically (in-person) in the final round of the competition held at the respective conference (ICASSP or ICIP) for any reason, at any point in the competition, then the team must notify SPS Staff and organizers immediately. This will likely result in the team being ineligible to continue in the competition, therefore forfeiting their position in the competition. Teams must make every effort to attend the final round at the conference; visa issues may be an exception. If all team members are unable to obtain visas, please be prepared to present proof of visa process, communication to obtain visa, as well as a visa denial. All eligibility decisions are at the discretion of the SPS Student Services Committee and competition organizers. If all team members are unable to obtain visas, please be prepared to present proof of visa process, communication to obtain visa, as well as a visa denial. All eligibility decisions are at the discretion of the SPS Student Services Committee and competition organizers.

Should a team be disqualified or forfeit their finalist position for any reason, the next team selected by the organizers may be contacted to compete in the final round, following the same rules listed above.

Only one team from a given institution may place as a finalist in the competition. If more than one team from the same institution placed in the top three ranking teams based on the phase one evaluation results, then only the team with the highest ranking will be considered as a finalist team All other teams from the same institution will be considered ineligible to compete as a finalist team. Please note, there is no limit for how many teams from the same institution can register for the competition and compete in the first phase of the competition.

The judging for the final phase of the competition held live at the conference will be based on five equally weighted criteria, unless otherwise specified by the competition organizers in the Official SP or VIP Cup Document/Call for Participation. Each of the three finalist teams will be scored on the five criteria and the team with the highest score will place 1st, the team with the second highest score will place 2nd, and the team with the third highest score will place 3rd in the competition.

The five equally weighted criteria are:

1. Innovation of the proposed approach
2. Performance of the first stage competition (by choosing the best submission)
3. Performance of the last submission (second phase held live at the conference) separately on the dataset(s)
4. Quality and clarity of the final report
5. Quality and clarity of the presentation

Each criterion is scored with a 1, 2, or 3; the best team in each criterion will receive 3 points, the second best team will receive 2 points, and the third best team will receive 1 point. The final winning rankings will be based on the highest points awarded from the five criteria during judge deliberations at the end of the competition. Final rankings are ultimately decided by the judges, at their discretion. All ranking decisions are final.

Any judge (participating in any phase of evaluation) and/or team supervisor participating in the competition must sign a Conflict-of-Interest Form agreeing to the following key points before participating in the competition. The IEEE Conflict of Interest form must be completed before participating in the competition. The Conflict of Interest form can be completed at the following link: https://www.ieee.org/about/compliance/conflict-of-interest/coiandpob.html

Conflict of Interest concerns shall be disclosed and addressed in accordance with IEEE Policies 9.9 A, B. and C and IEEE Policy 4.4.H. - Eligibility and Process Limitations. Judges involved at any stage of the team rankings/scoring process for an SPS competition shall be ineligible to judge/vote on the outcome of team rankings for the competition in which the conflict exists. Any real and perceived conflict of interest shall be avoided. Conflict of interest shall be defined as any relationships, professional or otherwise, that can affect impartiality and objectivity. Such relationships include, but are not limited to the below list.

1. faculty supervisor/student,
2. faculty supervisor/post-doc,
3. manager/employee,
4. shared institutional affiliations,
5. recent (less than five years) research collaborations or joint authorship,
6. judge/team supervisor

In the case of a conflict of interest, the judge should neither listen to nor speak in the discussion and should not vote on the team scoring/ranking process.

In the SPS Policies and Procedures (https://signalprocessingsociety.org/volunteers/policy-and-procedures-manual)

! Required action: The IEEE Conflict of Interest form must be completed before participating in the competition evaluation. Please complete the following steps:

1. The Conflict of Interest form can be completed at the following link:https://www.ieee.org/about/compliance/conflict-of-interest/coiandpob.html
2. Confirm your submission of the completed Conflict of Interest form from Step 1 by at the following link: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/5c32170d1d8b444383c2635b033cf694

The [eligible] three teams with the highest performance in the open competition based on the judging criteria will be selected as finalists and invited to participate in the final competition at ICASSP or ICIP. The champion team will receive a grand prize of $5,000. The first and the second runner-up will receive a prize of $2,500 and $1,500, respectively. Prize money for each team is in addition to travel grants and complimentary conference registrations offered to up to three undergraduate team members. See the Official SP Cup or VIP Cup Document for full details on the prize offerings.

• Up to three undergraduate student members from each finalist team will be provided limited travel support to attend the conference in-person. In-person attendance of the physical conference is required for reimbursement.
  • Travel grant funds are offered on a reimbursement basis of up to $1,200 for continental travel and $1,700 for intercontinental travel; there are no exceptions.
  • Funds will be issued by way of a bank transfer after the competition via IEEE’s NextGen Expense Reimbursement (Concur) tool. Detailed information on this step will be sent via email to the finalist team members that will be receiving reimbursement.
  • Receipts are required for all expenses and must be uploaded into Concur for reimbursement. See the Terms and Conditions for additional details on requirements for receipts.
  • Any team member that has previously participated in a finalist team and received SPS funded travel support within the last calendar year are not eligible to receive the support again if their team is selected as a finalist.
  • Please note that IEEE may not be able to provide certain services to certain designated countries, entities, or individuals from those countries or entities per OFAC. View a list of these countries.
• Complimentary conference registration for up to three undergraduate team members of finalist teams.
  • These complimentary conference registrations cannot be used to cover any papers accepted by the conference.
  • You must notify Jaqueline Rash, Jaqueline.rash@ieee.org, via email of the three team members who have been chosen to receive complimentary registration. A registration promo code will be provided.
  • VISA information: Once registered for the conference, each individual will have the opportunity to request an invitation letter through the conference website to be used for the visa application process. If you have difficulties requesting or obtaining your visa letter after registering for the conference, contact the conference registration/organizers. This is the only way to receive a letter for visa application purposes, please do not email SPS Staff with this request. Registration and visa letter requests cannot be handled by SPS Staff and it will prevent delays.
• The finalist teams will also be invited to join the Conference Banquet and the SPS Student Job Fair, so that they can meet and talk to SPS leaders and global experts. Please note, registration for the Conference Banquet and Student Job Fair is limited and based on availability. You must add these events to your registration. If you are unable to add these events to your registration, then maximum capacity has been reached. There are no exceptions for the Conference Banquet, however, there may be additional availability for the Student Job Fair. You can inquire by emailing Jaqueline Rash and copy sp-competitions@listserv.ieee.org.