Best Paper Award at ADBIS 2026

Oct 31, 2026

Joel Díaz Álvarez, alumnus of the Bachelor's Degree in Informatics Engineering at the FIB, and Alberto Abelló have received the Best Paper Award at ADBIS 2026 for their paper Embedding Generation: Gembed an Open In-Database Extension to Use Them All.

The paper, co-authored by Joel Díaz Álvarez and Alberto Abelló, was presented at the 30th European Conference on Advances in Databases and Information Systems (ADBIS 2026), held in Orléans, France, from 28 September to 1 October. The research originated from Joel Díaz's Bachelor's Thesis, which received the highest distinction (Matrícula d'Honor).

The research introduces Gembed, an open architecture that enables embeddings—numerical representations of data such as text and images—to be generated directly within database management systems. By bringing embedding generation into the database itself, Gembed reduces dependence on external services and offers a more integrated approach to supporting modern AI applications.

The presentation was on 1 October during the conference session “Integration, auditing, diversification and embeddings”. The ADBIS 2026 proceedings include 22 full papers selected from 80 submissions, highlighting the competitiveness of this international research forum.

Photo caption: Joel Díaz at the ADBIS 2026 awards ceremony, alongside Genoveva Vargas-Solar, Themis Palpanas and Kostas Stefanidis, the conference's Program Committee Chairs.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-39820-8_24