The Edsger W. Dijkstra Paper Prize in Distributed Computing is given for outstanding papers on the principles of distributed computing, whose significance and impact on the theory and/or practice of distributed computing has been evident for at least a decade. The paper prize has been presented annually since 2000.
Originally the paper prize was presented at the ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC), and it was known as the PODC Influential-Paper Award. It was renamed in honor of Edsger W. Dijkstra in 2003, after he received the award for his work in self-stabilization in 2002 and died shortly thereafter.
Since 2007, the paper prize is sponsored jointly by PODC and the EATCS International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC), and the presentation takes place alternately at PODC (even years) and DISC (odd years). The paper prize includes an award of $2000.
The award is financed by ACM PODC and EATCS DISC, each providing an equal share of $1,000 towards the $2,000 of the award.