Prizes:

The three winning teams will receive a cash prize and the opportunity to present their solutions live during the ICIP 2026.

1st Place: 2,500 EUR + invitation to visit the ESA Centre for Earth Observation (Frascati, Italy) + diploma

2nd Place: 1,500 EUR + diploma

3rd Place: 1000 EUR + diploma

Additionally, we will offer reimbursement for the IEEE ICIP 2026 registration and associated travel expenses for the three top performing teams of up to 500 EUR per team.

Joint journal paper: The best-performing teams will be invited to contribute to a high-impact journal paper summarizing the ClearSAR Challenge.

Final ranking and prize eligibility:

The final ranking will be presented during the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2026 (IEEE ICIP 2026) in Tampere, Finland, 13-17 September 2026.

Only the Teams that will submit their solution in time and in full volume, and will submit a two-page abstract to IEEE ICIP 2026, will be considered for the prizes. Please check the Rules section of this webpage for more info on how to create and submit a viable solution. If the solution turns out to be not reproducible, or if any concerns about its validity arise, the organisers reserve the right to contact the team leader of the corresponding team to resolve such issues. If the issues cannot be resolved, the Team will not be eligible to receive a prize (see the Challenge evaluation section on the Rules webpage of this website).

All prize money and reimbursements will be transferred to the point of contact of the respective Team. The point of contact and the Teams are responsible for fair and equal distribution of the prize money between all team members or choosing the further use of the money. The organizers will not interfere with any potential dispute on these matters and cannot offer legal or arbitrary assistance.

Announcement of winners:

The winners will be announced during the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2025 (IEEE ICIP 2025) in Tampere, Finland, 13-17 September 2026.

The three winning teams are eligible to reimburse up to 500 EUR per team (not per person!) for traveling and accommodation.

Ownership of your solution:

Any of your Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) contained in the solution you will develop for this challenge will remain yours. While we ask you to submit the code at the end of this challenge to be eligible for the prizes, we will only use this to validate your approach.

Participants must hold the necessary ownership or usage rights for all code created and/or used during the Challenge. Please get in contact with the organizing team if you are unclear about potential IPR of your solution. Intellectual Property Rights are treated with utmost seriousness. Any breach may result in the immediate suspension from the ongoing Challenge. Repeated IPR breaches might result in a permanent ban from the Φ-lab Challenges.

Full Terms and Conditions:

By participating in this challenge, each team member agrees to the Terms and Conditions provided under this link.