In 1992, ACM SIGMOD started the Annual SIGMOD Innovations Award and SIGMOD Contributions Award as part of its Awards Program. In 1999, a test-of-time award was introduced to honor a paper from ten years prior. In 2004, SIGMOD, with the unanimous approval of ACM Council, renamed the Innovations Award in honor of Dr. Edgar F. (Ted) Codd (1923 – 2003), who invented the relational data model that led to the significant development of the database field as a scientific discipline. In 2015, the System award was devised to recognize impactful systems (as opposed to papers). Finally, this year marks the introduction of the Hector Garcia-Molina mentorship award. More details about each award are below.
The recipients will receive the awards at the annual ACM SIGMOD/PODS Conference in all cases. If the award is shared among multiple recipients, each will receive a plaque, but the monetary prize will be shared.
Click here to see the call for nominations for the latest ACM SIGMOD Awards. Nominations and inputs for the awards should be submitted via e-mail to the SIGMOD 2026 Awards Committee Chair at sharad AT ics.uci.edu. Nominations must be received by February 15th, 2026 to be considered for this year’s awards. Click on the link below to navigate to a specific award, its committee (if applicable), and its recipients.
- SIGMOD Best Paper Award
- SIGMOD Best Demonstration Award
- SIGMOD Best Artifact Award
- SIGMOD Contributions Award
- SIGMOD Distinguished AEs and PCs
- SIGMOD Hector Garcia-Molina Distinguished Mentorship Award
- SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award
- SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award
- SIGMOD Research Highlight Award
- SIGMOD Special Service Award
- SIGMOD Student Research Competition Winners
- SIGMOD Systems Award
- SIGMOD Test of Time Award
- SIGMOD Undergraduate Award