Dear colleagues,

Please consider submitting your work for the DGOF Best Paper Award 2026!

Best regards, Florian Keusch

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*DGOF Best Paper Award 2026*

*to recognize outstanding scientific contributions in online research*

The *German Society for Online Research (DGOF)* annually recognizes outstanding scientific contributions in online research through the *DGOF Best Paper Award* for a researcher or group of researchers.

The DGOF by-laws define “online research” as any type of research about computers or other devices that are connected by a network, in particular the Internet. Online research includes online based data collection (e.g., web surveys in online panels), mobile research with smartphones, tablets, and wearables, and the collection and analysis of social media data, administrative data, data from passive measurements, and other data sources.

The prize will be awarded to a paper that provides a fundamental scientific contribution to the advancement of the methods of online research. Topics that are suitable for the award can be found in the program of the annual *General Online Research (GOR)* conference (www.gor.de http://www.gor.de/). Both theoretical/conceptual and empirical/methodological papers are considered for the award. Papers that do not focus on online research but, for example, merely use online data collection (e.g., through a web survey) to answer a substantive research question will not be considered.

The award is worth *500 Euro* and will be presented at the annual GOR conference. An abstract (and, if available, an open access version) of the award-winning paper will be posted to the DGOF website (www.dgof.de http://www.dgof.de). To be considered for the award, papers must be published in an outlet that uses a peer-review process (e.g., peer-reviewed journal, full papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, refereed book chapter) at the time of submission. Papers written in German or English and published not earlier than 2024 (if the paper was published online-first, then the online-first publication date counts) can be submitted for the DGOF Best Paper Award 2026.

To be considered for the *DGOF Best Paper Award 2026*, please fill in the following *application form* https://www.dgof.de/forschungsfoerderung/application-dgof-best-paper-award-2024/ by *30. September 2025*. In addition, please send the following material to office@dgof.de (subject line: “DGOF Best Paper Award 2026”):

* Copy (PDF) of the published paper * CV of corresponding author

The winner will be selected by a committee installed by the DGOF board. All decisions are final and not subject to legal appeal.

For questions please contact the DGOF office: office@dgof.de

*Deutsche Gesellschaft für Online-Forschung - DGOF e.V.* Huhnsgasse 34b D-50676 Köln Tel.: +49(0)221-27 23 18-180 E-Mail: office@dgof.de Web: www.dgof.de