Important Dates
Submission Deadline: January 19, 2026
Notification Deadline: Apr 29, 2026
Camera Ready Deadline: May 15, 2026
(all times are 23:59 Anywhere On Earth, UTC-12)
The IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Survey Track enables the AI community to learn from AI researchers who are experts on a topic by allowing them to give a survey talk that presents a structured synthesis of that topic. Papers accepted to the Survey Track will be published in the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference and present the work at IJCAI-ECAI 2026 in Bremen.
We are looking forward to the community meeting in person.
Who Can Submit a Paper?
The list of authors should contain at least one author who has contributed significantly to the AI literature and one author (potentially the same person) who is an expert on the topic of the submission.
What Is a Suitable Topic?
The IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Survey Track provides an opportunity for established researchers in the AI community to give a broad talk on a well-established body of research, which provides a big-picture view of the topic rather than discussing a particular aspect. The topic should be of interest to current AI researchers and practitioners. Of particular interest are papers that describe how lessons learned from the topic can contribute to new ideas and visions that can stimulate the research community to pursue new directions, e.g., new problems.
How Should the Paper Be Written?
The survey should have a well-defined scope and be understandable for most of the AI community. It should clarify why the topic is important and its intended or existing applications. The survey should be comprehensive concerning state of the art, with a personal stance on the topic. The description of the existing work should be structured. It should contain a discussion (e.g., aiming at comparing alternative approaches, identifying open questions and challenges). It should not be a simple juxtaposition of summaries of papers or groups of papers. While the authors’ work can sometimes be an important part of a survey, there should be no significant bias towards it: the work of others should be mentioned and appreciated by its relevance and importance. The paper should be of very high quality in terms of presentation, at the appropriate technical level, and grounded in the existing literature.
Submission Details, Paper Length and Format
Formatting guidelines: The updated LaTeX styles and Word template are available at https://www.ijcai.org/authors_kit.
Submission site: papers should be submitted to https://chairingtool.com/conferences/IJCAIECAI2026/survey?role=author
Paper format: Because at least one of the authors must be a recognized expert on the topic, submissions to the survey track are *not* anonymous and should include the names and affiliations of all authors. Submitted papers must be formatted according to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 guidelines (link above). Full instructions, including formatting guidelines and electronic templates, are available on the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 website. Submissions must be in PDF format. Submissions that violate the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) will be rejected without review. Submissions must be self-contained; the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 survey track will not accept or review any supplementary material. In addition, at least one author must submit a short CV (up to 2 pages in any reasonable format) providing evidence that they are an expert on the topic of the submitted survey paper.
Submitted technical papers must be no longer than nine (9) pages in total: seven (7) pages for the main text of the paper (including all figures but excluding references) and up to two (2) additional pages for references (these may also include acknowledgements, as well as an ethics statement and a contribution statement). No supplementary material is allowed. For accepted papers, up to two additional pages may be purchased at an additional cost per page, but note that at the time of submission, papers should adhere to the guidelines above: seven pages for the main text plus two pages for references. Final camera-ready versions will be formatted according to the publisher’s instructions. Submissions not in compliance with these length and formatting requirements will not be considered for review.
Submissions must be submitted electronically through the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Survey submission site (link above) by the submission deadline. You are allowed to submit only two PDF files: one for the survey paper and one for CV(s). If multiple authors are included in the CV, they must be combined into a single PDF, with a maximum of two pages per author. For example, if there are two authors, the CV PDF should not exceed four pages in total.
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 treated in strict confidence until the publication date.
Submission restrictions: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 is enforcing a strict submission limit. Each author is limited to no more than one submission to the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Survey Track. If an author is listed on multiple submissions, any additional papers — identified by submission ID — will be desk-rejected after the submission deadline. Also, each author is limited to no more than 8 submissions to IJCAI-ECAI 2026, and this limit also includes papers submitted to the Survey Track.
Author information: 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.
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.
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.
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 a 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.
Dual submissions policy: The IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Survey Track will not accept any paper that, at the time of 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).
Generative AI Usage Policy: Generative AI models, including Chat-GPT, Gemini, Llama, or similar LLMs/VLMs, 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. IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will use technology to identify content that is AI-generated. In particular, submissions containing factual errors (including references) will be desk-rejected.
Participation in the conference: At least one author of each accepted paper must participate in the conference in 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.
Enquiries: Please send all enquiries about the Survey Track to the IJCAI 2026 Survey Track Chairs, at surveys@2026.ijcai.org.