- 28.05–22.06.2025Application period
- 10.07–21.08.2025Interviews
- Autumn 2025Prize ceremony
For many years, Yandex has been at the forefront of ML, building innovative products and solutions and leading the field. Since 2007, we’ve been training ML experts at the Yandex School of Data Analysis.
Instructors play a vital role in the development of ML and AI — they pass on their knowledge, inspire students to make discoveries, and nurture future specialists in areas such as:
- Speech recognition and speech synthesis
Research that helps voice assistants understand speech and respond to users. - Computer vision
Research that helps self-driving vehicles navigate in space and enables computer systems to extract information from images. - Information retrieval
Methods for handling huge amounts of data and identifying patterns in it. - Natural language processing and machine translation
Research that enables language models to generate texts and online translators to understand hundreds of different languages. - Generative models
Neural networks algorithms that create text, video, audio, or images at the user’s request.
Nominations
- Educators
- Program leaders
- Novice educators
Educators
Candidate requirements
Authors and co-authors of open-source courses in the field of ML who are holding classes at universities or research institutes in Russia and have at least three years of experience. Important: The course must have at least one cohort of graduates. Optional: Engaging in science outreach, updating and improving course content, or conducting academic research.
Applications can be submitted by instructors, students of their course, or both.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 1 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training. i Faculty members and their project teams can use the resources to create and improve course curricula, conduct research, organize hackathons, and support student-led initiatives. Cloud technologies provide convenient infrastructure, save time, and make it easy to scale projects.
Program leaders
Candidate requirements
Leaders of prominent and in-demand machine learning programs in Russia, with hands-on teaching experience. Important: The program must have at least one cohort of graduates. Teaching experience at Russian universities or research institutes is required.
Applications can be submitted by instructors or by students who have completed their courses.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 1 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training. i Faculty members and their project teams can use the resources to create and improve course curricula, conduct research, organize hackathons, and support student-led initiatives. Cloud technologies provide convenient infrastructure, save time, and make it easy to scale projects.
Novice educators
Candidate requirements
Junior faculty with at least one year of teaching experience. Authors or co-authors of open-source courses, and seminar instructors at universities or research institutes in Russia. Optional: Participation as mentors in project- or course-related activities, or involvement in competitions — either individually or as team coaches.
Applications must be submitted by a senior faculty member.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 500,000 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training. i Faculty members and their project teams can use the resources to create and improve course curricula, conduct research, organize hackathons, and support student-led initiatives. Cloud technologies provide convenient infrastructure, save time, and make it easy to scale projects.
How the prize has evolved
The Yandex ML Prize is an award recognizing outstanding contributions to machine learning, created to support research and achievement in the field. In 2025, we’re focusing on the educator track, while continuing to honor world-class professionals in computer science.
- 2019Prize launchWhen we launched the prize, our goal was to support students advancing science in ML — and those who help them grow.
- 2023New nominationsWe introduced a nomination for first research publication, along with nominations for emerging research leaders and educators, to highlight contributions at every stage of an academic career.
- 2025Educator trackWe’re focusing on faculty who help others grow in ML — the ones nurturing the next generation of talent.
Prize winners
- Ivan ButakovMIPT, SkoltechInformation theory, learning theory, generative models, unsupervised learning
- Artem LykovSkoltechCognitive robotics, generative models, LLM
- Ilya ZismanAIRI, Skoltech, dunnolabReinforcement learning, meta-RL, open-ended learning
FAQ
- Are the Yandex ML Prize and the Ilya Segalovich Award the same thing?
Yandex ML Prize is the new title of the Ilya Segalovich Award. In 2025, the award may be given to instructors and program leaders who contribute to the development of machine learning.
- What are the award nominations?
Since 2019, nominations have recognized researchers, academic supervisors, and faculty members. Starting in 2025, the award focuses on educators and leaders of educational programs — highlighting their contributions to the development of machine learning.
- I’m the Yandex ML Prize winner in the period of 2019–2024. Can I apply in 2025?
Yes, you can re-apply for the prize if you meet the nomination criteria.
- Can I apply in multiple categories?
No, you can only apply for one nomination except you nominate other candidates for the prize.
- The candidate works with universities and research institutes in other countries. Can I nominate them?
Yes. Working with foreign universities and research institutes is not an obstacle for receiving the award. However, the competition primarily considers the candidate’s work in Russia.
- How do I nominate someone for the Educators, Program Leaders, or Novice Educators nomination?
The application is to be submitted by a professor or a group of students who have completed the course.
- I’d like to apply for the research track. Can I do this?
This year, we’re not awarding prizes in the First Publication, Researchers, Young Research Supervisors, or Academic Supervisors nominations. However, if your work includes both research and teaching, we encourage you to apply.