Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline: January 12, 2026
Author information and Full paper submission deadline (including Appendix and resubmission information): January 19, 2026
Summary reject notification: March 4, 2026
Author response period: April 7-10, 2026
Paper notification: April 29, 2026
Conference: Saturday, August 15 to Friday, August 21, 2026.
(all times are 23:59 Anywhere On Earth, UTC-12)
We invite submissions for the 35th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-ECAI 2026, scheduled to take place in Bremen, Germany, from August 15 to 21, 2026. Since its founding in 1969, IJCAI has been the premier conference for the global AI community, fostering the exchange of groundbreaking advancements and achievements in AI research. This year, it once again is organised jointly with the European Artificial Intelligence Association as IJCAI-ECAI 2026.
In addition to the main track, authors will be able to submit papers to five special tracks (Human-centered AI, AI for Social Good, AI4Tech: AI Enabling Critical Technologies, AI and Health, AI and Robotics), as well as the Survey Track; these tracks will post their calls for papers separately but their deadlines will be the same as those listed above. Moreover, IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will host the Journal Track, the Sister Conferences Track, Early Career Highlights, Competitions, Demos, and the Doctoral Consortium, also posting their calls for papers separately but with different deadlines than those above.
Primary Paper Initiative: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 is launching the Primary Paper Initiative in response to the international AI research community’s call to address challenges and to revitalize the peer review process, while strengthening the reviewers and authors in the process. Under the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Primary Paper Initiative, every submission is subject to a fee of USD 100. That paper submission fee is waived for primary papers, i.e., papers for which none of the authors appear as an author on any other submission to IJCAI-ECAI 2026. The initiative applies to the main track, Survey Track, and all special tracks,excluding the Journal Track, the Sister Conferences Track, Early Career Highlights, Competitions, Demos, and the Doctoral Consortium. All proceeds generated from the Primary Paper Initiative will be exclusively directed toward the support of the reviewing community of IJCAI-ECAI 2026. To recognize the reviewers’ contributions, the initiative introduces Peer Reviewer Recognition Policy with clearly defined standards (which will be published on the conference web site). The initiative aims to enhance review quality, strengthen accountability, and uphold the scientific excellence of the conference. Details and the FAQ will be published on the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 website.
Submissions to the main track of IJCAI-ECAI 2026 should report significant, original, and previously unpublished results on any aspect of AI. Papers on novel AI research problems, AI techniques for novel application domains, and papers that cross discipline boundaries within AI are especially encouraged.
A selection of distinguished papers submitted to the main track of IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will be invited for expedited reviewing and publication in the Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) or the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR).
Contact for questions not answered in the call or FAQ: pcchair@2026.ijcai.org
Summary
- Papers must be no longer than 9 pages in total: 7 pages for the body of the paper and 2 pages for references. All authors must provide author information. All authors are expected to be available to review.
- Two-phase reviewing: Every paper will receive two reviews in Phase 1. Papers that advance beyond Phase 1 will receive additional reviews in Phase 2, during which authors will have the opportunity to submit a response.
- Supplementary material (e.g., appendices, data, source code, resubmission information) must be submitted by the full paper submission deadline. Paper resubmissions from other conferences are welcome but authors are required to provide resubmission information, as described below.
- Generative AI models do not satisfy the criteria for authorship of papers published in IJCAI-ECAI 2026. If authors use an LLM in any part of the paper-writing process they assume full responsibility for all content, including checking for plagiarism and correctness of the entire submission. Text generated by an LLM as part of the paper’s methodology or experimental analysis is allowed but needs to be properly documented and described in the paper.
Detailed Information
Page limit: Papers must be no longer than 9 pages in total: 7 pages for the body of the paper and 2 pages for references; an optional ethics statement can be placed either in the body of the paper or in the reference pages.
Authors commit to reviewing: By submitting to the conference, each author volunteers to be entered into the pool of potential PC members/reviewers for IJCAI-ECAI 2026 and may be asked to review papers for the conference. This does not apply to authors who have already agreed to contribute to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 in some capacity (e.g., as PC/SPC members of the main conference or special tracks, area chairs, senior area chairs, or members of the organizing committee) and authors who are not qualified to be IJCAI PC members (e.g., undergraduate students, junior graduate students, or researchers with a limited track record in AI). This requirement may be waived in a limited range of exceptional circumstances (researchers leaving academia, parental leave, etc.)
Simplified procedure for resubmission information: Authors must declare whether their paper has been rejected from another peer-reviewed conference in the last 12 months before the submission. They will be requested to upload the latest rejected version (anonymized if necessary) with the reviewer’s comments; a cover letter responding to the reviews is optional. To avoid bias, the resubmission information will only be made available to reviewers after they submit their reviews. The program committee reserves the right to reject papers that fail to report resubmission information. Further, reviewers will be encouraged to check whether the resubmission addresses factual issues pointed out in the reviews of the previous version (e.g., typos, incorrect attribution of results, etc.) and to reject submissions that fail to do so.
Acknowledgements and contribution statement: No acknowledgements or contribution statements should be included in submissions.
Selection Process
Selection criteria: Selection criteria include the novelty and originality of ideas, correctness, clarity, the significance of results, potential impact and quality of the presentation.
Summary rejects: The reviewing process will proceed in two phases. In Phase 1, every paper will be reviewed by two PC members. If a paper receives two good-quality reviews that are not sufficiently positive in Phase 1, it will be rejected without any opportunity to submit an author response. By submitting a paper, the authors acknowledge that they are aware of the possibility of receiving a summary rejection notification.
Full paper review: Papers passing the summary reject step will go through the full reviewing process. Each paper will be reviewed by a group of PC members (PCs) and SPC members (SPCs). Area Chairs (ACs) will coordinate the review process and write a meta-review with a recommendation cross-checked by a Senior Area Chair (SAC).
Author response: The full paper review process will allow authors to respond to the reviews. Author responses should be concise and are not intended to create a dialogue between reviewers and authors. Author responses will be visible to SAC, AC, SPC, and PCs.
Participation in the conference: At least one author of each accepted paper must participate in the conference at Bremen and present the work. We are looking forward to the community meeting in person. Papers not presented in person will be excluded from the proceedings unless one of the authors provides notification of exceptional circumstances to IJCAI via pcchair@2026.ijcai.org. Any such exceptional circumstances must receive prior approval from IJCAI.
Ethics policy and ethics statement: IJCAI is committed to the highest standards of research integrity. Submissions must adhere to fundamental ethical principles, including the responsible use of datasets (respecting privacy, copyright, and informed consent) and mitigating potential societal harms (such as risks to safety, and issues related to discrimination and bias).
Consistent with the previous editions of the conference, IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will implement a streamlined ethics review policy. Reviewers will be asked to flag glaring violations of ethical principles. Such flagged submissions will be reviewed by the Ethics Chair. In rare situations, the Program Chair, advised by the Ethics Chair, reserves the right to reject a submission on ethical grounds. However, we anticipate that the primary approach to addressing ethical concerns will require authors to revise their submissions to include a discussion that identifies these concerns and proposes strategies for their mitigation.
Authors can include in the main body of their paper, or on the reference pages, an ethics statement that addresses both ethical issues regarding the research being reported and the broader ethical impact of the work. Note that such an ethics statement is not required, but we recommend that papers working with sensitive data or on sensitive tasks include such discussion. The IJCAI review form will include a section asking reviewers and ACs to flag any serious ethical concerns.
Conflict of interest policy: All individuals involved in the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 review process must adhere to the IJCAI conflict of interest policy. Details can be found at https://www.ijcai.org/IJCAI_Conflict_of_Interest_Policy.pdf. All authors of papers submitted to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 agree to be bound by the conditions outlined in this call for papers (w.r.t. multiple submissions, authorship, resubmission policy, submission limit, etc.). Authors and reviewers acknowledge that IJCAI may take action against individuals in breach of the conflict of interest and call for papers policies, including – but not limited to – rejecting their submissions without further review and banning individuals from submitting their work to a limited number of IJCAI conferences in the future.
Confidentiality policy: All submissions will be handled with strict confidentiality until their publication date.
Submission Process
Formatting guidelines: The updated LaTeX styles and Word template are available at https://www.ijcai.org/authors_kit.
Submission site: https://chairingtool.com/conferences/IJCAIECAI2026/main-track?role=author
Mandatory abstract submission: The paper title, author names, contact details, and a brief abstract must be submitted electronically through the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 paper submission site (link above) by the abstract submission deadline. It will be possible to make minor edits to the title and abstract until the full paper submission deadline. However, submissions with “placeholder” abstracts may be removed without consideration.
Author Information: Full papers must be submitted through the same site by the paper submission deadline. The list of author names provided at the Author Information Deadline is final. Authors may not be added to or removed from papers following submission. (The author’s ordering may still be changed during the camera-ready period.) Providing accurate author details is essential for managing the paper workflow process. Therefore, all authors must register and fill out the author information form on the submission site by the Author Information deadline. Please note that ORCID is now compulsory! Submissions may be rejected without review if any co-author fails to register and submit the necessary information.
Submission limit: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will enforce a strict submission limit. Each author is limited to no more than 8 submissions to IJCAI-ECAI 2026.
Keywords: When submitting abstracts, authors must choose up to three content area keywords. General categories should be used only if specific categories do not apply or do not accurately reflect the main contributions. The full list of keywords will be available on the submission site.
Copyright: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will be conducted in accordance with IJCAI guidelines. All accepted papers will be published exclusively by IJCAI (open access), with IJCAI retaining the copyright.
Submission Requirements
Paper format: Papers submitted to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 must be formatted according to the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 guidelines (link above). Submissions must be self-contained. Authors are required to submit their electronic papers in PDF format. Submissions that violate the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) will be rejected without review.
Paper length: Papers must be no longer than 9 pages in total: 7 pages for the body of the paper (including all figures/tables), plus up to 2 additional pages with references; the optional ethics statement can be placed either in the body of the paper or in the reference pages. Overlength papers will be rejected without review.
Supplementary material: Authors may submit up to 50MB of supplementary material, such as appendices, proofs, derivations, data, or source code; all supplementary material must be in PDF or ZIP format. Supplementary material should be created by the authors that directly support the submission content. Like submissions, supplementary material must be anonymized. There are two entries for supplementary files in the paper management system: one is “Technical Appendix”, and the other one is “Resubmission File”. The latter should be used for providing resubmission information only. Reviewers may choose to consult the technical appendix at their discretion.
Anonymity: From the authors’ perspective, reviewing for IJCAI-ECAI 2026 is double-blind. As an author, you are responsible for anonymizing your submission. In particular, you should not include author names or affiliations in your submission and should avoid providing any other identifying information (even in the supplementary material). Acknowledgements of funding or assistance should also be omitted at the submission stage. When referring to one’s work, use the third person rather than the first person. For example, say, “Previously, Calvanese et al. [8] have shown that…” rather than “In our previous work [8], we have shown that…”. All identifying information can be added to the final camera-ready version of accepted papers. Supplementary material (including the resubmission information) and code should also be anonymized (including, for instance, hardcoded paths or URLs that may give away login identifiers or institutions). In case of resubmissions, if the previous version of the paper was not anonymous, the authors must anonymize the submission to IJCAI-ECAI 2026. The authors should also remove identifying information from the PDF metadata. Submissions that violate anonymity will be rejected without further review.
Preprints: The existence of non-anonymous preprints (on arXiv, social media, websites, etc.) and prior publication in non-archival venues will not result in rejection. Note that the submission to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 must always be anonymized regardless of whether a preprint has been released. Reviewers will be instructed not to look for such preprints actively, but encountering them will not constitute a conflict of interest.
Reproducibility: Authors must follow the reproducibility guidelines(available here) and checklist at the time of paper submission.
Dual submissions: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will not accept any paper that, at the time of full paper submission, is under review for, has already been published in or has already been accepted for publication in a journal or another venue with formally published proceedings. Authors of IJCAI-ECAI 2026 submissions are also not permitted to submit their paper to a journal or another venue with formally published proceedings during the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 review period. (As a guideline, authors should regard publications with a DOI, ISBN, or ISSN as formal publications. Questions about submission eligibility should be referred to the Program Chair <pcchair@2026.ijcai.org> before the deadline.) These restrictions do not apply to workshops and similar specialized presentations without formally published proceedings.
For inquiries, email pcchair@2026.ijcai.org