Call for Workshop Proposals

The 34th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (ACM UMAP 2026) will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 8 to 11, 2026. ACM UMAP 2026 will be a fully in-person, on-site conference.  

UMAP 2026 continues to be the leading international conference bringing together research in AI and HCI to support effective human-AI collaboration via interactive systems that can model, adapt, and personalize to their users. 

We invite proposals for workshops to be held in conjunction with UMAP 2026. Traditionally, workshops provide additional forums for participants to engage in focused discussions and explore key emerging areas of the conference topics; they provide a setting for researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to share ideas and seed new research trajectories. 

For UMAP 2026, our goal is to curate a diverse and balanced workshop program that reflects the breadth and depth of the UMAP community, accommodating newly emerging, currently evolving, and historically understudied research topics.  We welcome half-day workshops of different formats: From traditional, mini-conference-style events with their own submission and peer-review process, to more interactive and hands-on formats. These may include moderated discussions, collaborative writing sessions, hackathon-style resource development, or design-thinking workshops that encourage active participation. 

Please note that we can only accommodate half-day workshops.

Selection Criteria

Workshop Chairs will curate the final selection of workshops according to the following criteria:

  • Relevance and Contribution. Potential to advance research in user modeling, adaptation, personalization, or related areas, stimulate discussion, and open new research directions.
  • Program Cohesion, Balance, and Diversity. Alignment with UMAP topics, without duplicating main tracks, contributing to balanced coverage of topics and methods across selected workshops, along with promoting diversity and cross-disciplinary engagement.
  • Organizers’ Expertise, Commitment, and Diversity. Organizing team’s expertise, clarity of roles, and commitment to active participation (e.g,  in-person). We encourage including organizers from varied institutions to bring diverse perspectives to the workshop topic.
  • Organization and Format. Appropriateness of the format  (paper-based vs interactive), clarity and feasibility of planned activities, and engagement potential; creative formats that attract contributions and interactions are encouraged. 
  • Interest and Dissemination. Plans to attract participants and submissions, and strategies for effective dissemination, such as proceedings, white papers, or shared datasets.
  • Innovation and Engagement Potential. Use of interactive or novel formats to foster collaboration, discussion, and engagement of academic, industry, and interdisciplinary participants.

Important Dates

January 22, 2026

Workshop Proposal Submission

February 6, 2026

Notification

February 26, 2026

Workshop Website URL Submission

April 30, 2026

Workshop Summary Camera-ready Submission (TAPS system)

June TBD, 2026

Workshop Days

Note: the submission deadline is at 11:59 pm AoE (Anywhere on Earth) time.

Submission Guidelines

All submissions and notifications will be handled electronically. The maximum length is 3 pages (excluding references) in the double-column format. Workshop proposals must be submitted through the EasyChair submission system, https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=umap2026, by selecting the “Workshops” track.

Proposal Structure. Each proposal should include the information below, in the stated order.

  1. Workshop title and acronym, along with an abstract of the workshop (200 words maximum). Please note that this title and abstract will be used as your short workshop description on the website upon acceptance.
  2. Workshop chair(s). For each organizer, include name, affiliation, and primary email address.
  3. Section 1: Workshop overview and rationale. A concise description of the workshop’s themes and objectives, its importance, and alignment with the UMAP audience.
  4. Section 2: Organizers’ information. A short description of each organizer’s experience in event organization and expertise in UMAP-related topics. Please indicate the main point of contact and specify who will attend in person. 
  5. Section 3: Workshop organization. Proposed format for the workshop, workshop duration, type of expected contributions, and anticipated number of participants.
  6. Section 4:  Workshop program. A detailed outline of the schedule and planned activities and speakers, if appropriate. Include strategies for ensuring active engagement from attendees.
  7. Section 5: Submission and participation process. For paper-based workshops: describe the submission and peer-review process, and provide an initial program committee list if confirmed (or explain its absence otherwise). For interactive or non-traditional formats: explain how participants will be selected, invited, or otherwise engaged.
  8. Section 6:  Promotion and dissemination. Plans for promoting the workshop to attract participants, along with strategies for disseminating outcomes (e.g., white papers, proceedings, repositories).
  9. Section 7: Workshop history. For recurring workshops: summarize prior editions of this workshop, including how the workshop has evolved and insights informing this new iteration (e.g., URL of prior editions, statistics on submissions and participations, themes, etc.). For new workshops: reflect on how the proposal fits within or complements similar events (include conference name and year), if any.

Formatting. Following the ACM publication workflow, all authors should submit manuscripts for review in the double-column format, using \documentclass[review,sigconf]{acmart}. These settings will ensure that there are line numbers, which aid in the review process. Below, we provide direct links to the latest ACM templates for your convenience:

Accessibility. Workshop organizers are strongly encouraged to provide “alt text” (alternative text) for floats (images, tables, etc.) in their proposals so that readers with disabilities can be given descriptive information for these floats that are important to the work. The descriptive text will be displayed in place of a float if the float cannot be loaded. This benefits the author,  broadens the reader base for the author’s work, and helps search engines index your floats accurately. Additionally, workshop proposals should follow the ACM Accessibility Recommendations for Publishing in Color and SIG ACCESS guidelines on describing figures.

For any questions or issues with these formatting instructions, please contact support at acmtexsupport@aptaracorp.com.

Expectations for Accepted Workshops

Organization. Organizers of accepted workshops are responsible for managing all aspects of their workshop. This includes creating a webpage with detailed organization and timeline, disseminating calls for papers and participation, selecting reviewers, gathering reviews, and finalizing the program. Organizers are also responsible for publicity and review processes as applicable.

Workshop Summary. Organizers are expected to provide a camera-ready summary of their workshop for inclusion in the main conference proceedings. Detailed camera-ready instructions will be shared after acceptance. Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. This results in some changes to how UMAP 2026 will publish workshop summaries and papers. Please see “Impact of ACM Open Publishing Model” below for details. 

Workshop Proceedings and Suggested Timeline. All workshop papers will be published in the same CEUR-WS workshop proceedings volume (see “Impact of ACM Open Publishing Model” below ). Consequently,  organizers must ensure that authors adhere to the workshop proceedings volume publication timeline. We will share detailed instructions upon workshop acceptance, but it is important to note that organizers will be responsible for submitting camera-ready versions of accepted contributions for their workshops and corresponding copyright forms by the camera-ready date. With that, we encourage the organizers of accepted workshops to diligently follow these suggested deadlines for the authors of workshop papers, as they are synchronized with the notification of paper acceptance in the main conference track and the availability of early registration for the authors of accepted workshop papers:

March 2, 2026

(Suggested) 1st Call for Workshop Papers

March 16, 2026

(Suggested) 2nd Call for Workshop Papers

April 9, 2026

(Suggested) Workshop Paper Submission

April 28, 2026

(Suggested) Notification

May 7, 2025

(Suggested) Camera-Ready for Authors

May 10, 2025

(Mandatory) Workshop Chairs Submit Camera-ready Papers to Proceedings Chairs (for CEUR system)

Publicity. The conference’s publicity chairs will promote the conference as a whole. Workshop organizers are responsible for promoting their own workshop. Please note that all attendees are required to register for the UMAP2026 conference.

Registration and Participation Policy

UMAP 2026 will require each accepted paper or other type of submission to have at least one registered author attending the conference. However, authors presenting multiple accepted papers will only need to pay a single registration fee, regardless of the number of papers they are presenting. This is in contrast with UMAP 2025, where each submitted paper required a separate registration fee to be paid.

Impact of ACM Open Publishing Model

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. This results in some changes to how UMAP 2026 will publish workshop summaries and papers.

Workshop Summaries

Workshop summaries will be included in the main UMAP 2026 proceedings published in the ACM Digital Library. As per ACM Open Policy, workshop summaries are APC non-eligible as they are not peer-reviewed research articles. In other words: Workshop summaries are exempt from paying the Open Access fees. 

Workshop Papers

In recent editions of UMAP, the workshop papers accepted at the different UMAP workshops were published in the Adjunct Proceedings. Continuing this policy would mean that workshop papers themselves would fall under ACM’s Open Access fee scheme. To lower the threshold for people to participate in the UMAP workshops, we will publish all accepted workshop papers in a single CEUR-WS volume prepared by the Proceedings Chairs. Authors of workshop papers do not have to pay to publish their paper in CEUR-WS.

Contact

For questions related to this call for workshops, please reach out to the UMAP 2026 workshop and tutorial chairs:

  • Lien Michiels, imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel & University of Antwerp
  • Sole Pera, TU Delft, The Netherlands

Contact information: umap2026-workshop-tutorial@um.org

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