Truly, graduate students are the lifeblood of any field. They offer insight and innovation that comes from taking a fresh look. They contribute tremendous energy, dedication and enthusiasm to the field. Clearly, this is as true of the ICAPS community as any other scientific field.
The Ph.D. students selected for participation are all currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program and have progressed enough in their research to have identified a topic and, at least, preliminary results with some quite close to graduation. They share a central focus on planning and scheduling problems in artificial intelligence and, based on their submission, a promise for exceptional research in their careers. They come from 10 countries on four continents and represent a diversity of approaches and subareas within our field.
The Doctoral Consortium is dedicated to giving these young researchers an opportunity to showcase their ideas to the ICAPS community as a whole and garner the attention of more senior people in the field who have volunteered to be their mentors. Some of the participants have only one or perhaps no faculty member at their home institution who specializes in planning and scheduling. The Doctoral Consortium facilitates their interacting with other researchers at all levels who share their passion for the field.
These proceedings contain extended abstracts from the participants. The topics are as broad in scope as the main program for the conference, and not surprisingly for graduate students, include areas rising in interest and importance such as mixed-initiative and model checking. The research projects presented are at different levels of maturity with some intriguing new ideas being proposed. Taken as a whole, the proceedings promise the all too rare opportunity to glimpse the future...