The Society commenced regognizing the quality of research of its young members with a "Best PhD thesis Prize" in 1998. This lasted for three consecutive years and the corresponding receipients were:

• 1998 - Markos Georganopoulos (PhD from Boston Univ., USA)
  Dissertation:" Models of blazars"
• 1999 - Emmanuel Xilouris (PhD from Univ. of Athens, Greece)
  Dissertation: "Distribution of stars and dust in spiral galaxies"
• 2000 - Spyros Basilakos (PhD from Univ. of Athens, Greece)
  Dissertation: "A study of velocity and density fields of galaxies and galaxy clusters"

In October 2011 the Governing Council of Hel.A.S. re-established the “Best PhD thesis Prize” of the Hellenic Astronomical Society, and formally set the requirements and application/evalution procedures. The Prize is awarded every two years during the conference of Hel.A.S. It recognizes the quality of the research work of the Junior members of the Society working in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in order to increase their visibility.

The recepients of the “Best PhD thesis Prize” are:

• 2019 - Georgios Vasilopoulos (PhD from MPE & Technical University of Munich, Germany)
  Dissertation: "Study of highly magnetised accreting neutron stars in the Magellanic Clouds and beyond"
• 2017 - shared between
  Ioannis Liodakis (PhD from Univ. of Crete, Greece)
  Dissertation: "Unvealing the physics of the most active of galaxies: connecting blazar theory and observations"
  and Antonios Nathanail (PhD from Univ. of Athens, Greece)
  Dissertation: "The magnetic field structure in the vicinity of a black hole"
• 2015 - Maria Petropoulou (PhD from Univ. of Athens, Greece)
  Dissertation: "A study on radiative instabilities and particle acceleration in magnetized compact sources"
• 2013 - Emmanouil Papastergis (PhD from Cornell Univ., USA)
  Dissertation: "Statistical Analysis Of Alfalfa Galaxies: Insights In Galaxy Formation & Near-Field Cosmology"

On September 1, 2020 the Governing Council of Hel.A.S. accepted a generous offer by the family of Dr. Emilios Harlaftis, an active member of our Society who passed away at an early age in 2005, and renamed the award to “Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis”, keeping the original statues and application procedures. The first prize was awarded in 2021.

• 2021 - Georgios Valogiannis (PhD from Cornell Univ., USA)
  Dissertation: "Testing gravity with cosmology: efficient simulations, novel statistics and analytical approaches"
• 2023 - Raphael Skalidis (PhD from Univ. of Crete, Greece)
  Dissertation: "Estimating the magnetic field strength in the interstellar medium"

The prize is restricted to members of Hel.A.S. who have successfully defended their thesis in a University either in Greece or abroad, during the period of the award. The thesis should be written on a topic in Astronomy or Astrophysics. The prize is accompanied by an monetary award of 1,000 Euros, offered by the Harlaftis family, which may be used for the participation of the person selected in an international conference to present the results from his/her thesis. The recipient of the prize is also expected to attend and give an oral presentation on her/his thesis during the conference of Hel.A.S. on the year of the award.

Any Ordinary member of Hel.A.S, may propose a candidate for the prize. The proposal should be accompanied by: a) a reference letter, b) the CV of the proposed candidate, c) a list with publications in referred journals and oral/poster presentations in international conferences, and d) an exteded abstract of the thesis (no more than three A4 pages).

The proposals are evaluated by the Council of Hel.A.S. The Council evaluates the proposals based mainly on the number of refereed papers (directly relevant to the thesis work) published by the applicant (as a first author) in the main Astronomical Journals (i.e. A&A, MNRAS, ApJ, AJ, as well as Nature, Science, PRL), the number citations to these papers (excluding self-citations), the applicant's overall CV, and the reference letter which accompanies the nomination.

Applications for the "2025 Best PhD thesis Prize - Emilios Harlaftis" are restricted to members of the Society, who have successfully defended their Ph.D. thesis between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2024. The application deadline is January 31, 2025. All application material should be sent by email to the Secretary of the Society (secretary@helas.gr).