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Guidance for NeurIPS Workshop Proposals 2026

 

Call for Workshops

By Ghada Zamzmi, Elisa Ricci, Shao-Hua Sun, Khoa Doan, Theodore Papamarkou, Piotr Koniusz

With the rapid growth and interest in NeurIPS and its associated workshops, the competition for workshops has increased alongside logistical constraints. To facilitate the process, the workshop chairs have agreed on the following guidelines for proposals to hold NeurIPS workshops in 2026. This document highlights the requirements and expectations for proposals. Organizers of workshop proposals should take care to respect all guidance provided here, and each requirement should be explicitly addressed in the proposal.

 

Important Dates

  1. Workshop Application Open: April 21, 2026, AoE
  2. Workshop Application Deadline: June 06, 2026, AoE
  3. Workshop Acceptance Notification: July 11, 2026, AoE
  4. Suggested Submission Date for Workshop Contributions:  August 29, 2026, AoE
  5. Mandatory Accept/Reject Notification Date: September 29, 2026, AoE
  6. Workshop Date: December 11 and December 12, 2026 (Sydney). December 12 and December 13, 2026 (Paris, Atlanta).

Note that the submission date for workshop contributions is suggested, and there is a trade-off between how much time workshops give authors to submit papers versus how much time reviewers have to provide reviews. 

The mandatory author notification deadline is September 29, 2026. Workshops that do not meet this deadline will have their complementary tickets withheld, or the workshop may even be canceled if workshop organizers are not responsive after this deadline.

 

Workshop Format

 

NeurIPS 2026 workshops will be one-day in-person events that span 7 to 9 hours. A maximum of 1-hour remote presentation will be allowed in case of unforeseen emergencies. Individual workshops may allocate that 1 hour at their discretion. Workshop chairs will monitor for any breaches of this rule.

 

Workshop Goals

  • Workshops provide an informal, dynamic venue for discussion of work in progress and future directions. Good workshops have helped to crystallize common problems, explicitly contrast competing frameworks, and clarify essential questions for a subfield or application area.
  • Workshops are a structured way to bring together people with common interests to form communities. We expect the workshops to include some form of community building and stand apart from other parts of the NeurIPS program, such as Tutorials or Competitions.
 

Selection Criteria

  • Importance of the topic, freshness, and its relevance to the community: Is the workshop focused on a clear and topical problem, and will the community find it interesting, exciting, useful, or novel? 
  • The degree to which the proposed program offers an opportunity for discussion among participants and for community building.
  • Diversity and inclusion in all forms (e.g., diversity of the team, speakers, geographical locations, organizations, organization types).
  • Invited speakers: Workshop organizers are encouraged to confirm tentative interest from proposed invited speakers and mention this in their proposal. Speakers are expected to be present at the workshop in person to give their talk unless there are exceptional circumstances. Please confirm with the speakers whether they are available to attend your preferred geographical location(s). (Workshop Chairs will monitor for any breaches of this rule.)
  • Organizational experience, potential, and ability of the team.
  • Points of difference. What makes this workshop substantively different from the hundreds of NeurIPS workshops held previously?
  • Details of logistics for the workshop. The proposal should clearly lay out the logistics for the workshop, both prior to the conference (calls for papers, confirmation of the speakers) and during the conference (schedule and organization during the day). We encourage organizers to move beyond a rigid talks-only format. The program could include elements to engage the audience, such as panels and debates, demos, etc.
  • “Why now?” Explain why this workshop is needed at this moment, given recent developments or gaps in the field, and what risks—such as fragmentation or missed coordination opportunities—may arise if it does not happen now.
 

Workshop Proposal Format

 

Submissions for workshop organization should be no more than three pages of proposal, plus no more than two pages of organizer information, and unlimited references. The reviewers are not obligated to read anything beyond those. To simplify proposal preparation, we strongly recommend using this template as a foundation for every proposal.

 

The three pages (or fewer) for the main proposal must include:

  • A title and a description of the workshop topic and content. Details and importance, freshness, and its relevance for the community (e.g., which audiences will benefit from this workshop, which new avenues or outstanding problems it will tackle, etc.)
  • Specify if any author has submitted concurrently a related proposal to other venues and/or is submitting other (related or not) workshop proposals to NeurIPS 2026. 
  • Location preference in the order from most preferred to least preferred, i.e.,
    • Sydney, Atlanta, Paris (or any other preferred order)
    • Paris only (Atlanta only, Sydney only)
    • Atlanta or Sydney (or any other preferred combination)
    • Any

(Please note we cannot guarantee venue preference; Paris and Atlanta can host 9-13 workshops per day, while Sydney can host considerably more/larger)

  • A list of invited speakers, if applicable, with an indication of which ones have already agreed and which ones are tentative.
  • Details of the demographic diversity of the organizers and speakers. Also, an account of any efforts to include diverse participants (e.g., via mentoring, subsidies, or the wording and topics in the call for proposals).
  • An estimate of the number of attendees.
  • If the workshop has been held before, a mandatory note specifying how many submissions the workshop received, how many papers were accepted (extended abstract/long format), and how many attendees the workshop attracted.
  • A description of special requirements and technical needs.
  • How your workshop will differ from any recent similar workshops in the same/other conferences and previous iterations of the same workshop (if applicable)
  • A very brief advertisement or tagline for the workshop, up to 140 characters, that highlights key information prospective attendees should know.
  • Optionally, a URL for the workshop website.
 

The two pages (or fewer) for information about organizers must include:

  • The names, affiliations, and email addresses of the organizers, with one-paragraph statements of their research interests, areas of expertise, and experience in organizing workshops and related events. Please highlight how the organizers’ profiles can make the proposed workshop successful. Please also indicate any other workshops (if any) that an organizer is proposing concurrently. 
  • A list of Program Committee members, with an indication of which members have already agreed. Organizers should do their best to estimate the number of submissions (especially for recurring workshops) in order to (a) ensure a sufficient number of reviewers so that each paper receives 3 reviews, and (b) anticipate that no one is committed to reviewing more than 3 papers. This practice is likely to ensure on-time, more comprehensive, and thoughtful reviews.
 

Assessment Process 

The workshop chairs will appoint a number of reviewers who will provide written assessments of the proposals against the criteria listed above. Reviewers’ reports will be considered by the workshop chairs, who will jointly decide upon the selected workshops (subject to the notes on COIs listed below). The final decisions will be made by the workshop chairs via consensus and judgment of the proposal (see Selection Criteria) and reviews; we will not simply add up scores assigned to all the criteria. This year, we will summarize reviews for each proposal (pros and cons indicated by the reviewers) to provide metareviews explaining decisions.  

 

Hard Constraints/Workshop Requirements

 
  1. Mandatory Accept/Reject Notification Deadline Before September 29, 2026: By submitting a workshop proposal, workshop organizers commit to notifying all contributors (including talks and posters) to the workshop of their acceptance status before September 29, 2026. A timeline should be included in the proposal that will allow for this. The September 29 deadline will be published on the NeurIPS main website and cannot be extended under any circumstances.
  2. OpenReview for Contributed Work
    Workshops that accept contributions must use OpenReview to manage submissions. This ensures that accepted submissions can be efficiently uploaded to NeurIPS.cc site to announce the workshop schedule to NeurIPS attendants clearly.
  3. Managing Chair and Reviewer Conflicts of Interest
    1. Workshop chairs and assistant chairs cannot be organizers or give invited talks at any workshop. However, they can submit papers and give contributed talks.
    2. Workshop reviewers cannot review any proposal on which they are listed as an organizer or invited speaker, or on which they have conflicts of interest as defined by the NeurIPS Conflicts of Interest. Moreover, they cannot accept invitations to speak at any workshop they have reviewed after the workshop is accepted.
    3. Workshop chairs and reviewers cannot review or shape acceptance decisions about workshops with organizers from within their organization. (For large corporations, this means anyone in the corporation worldwide).
  4. Managing Organizer Conflicts of Interest
    1. Workshop organizers cannot give talks at the workshops they organize. They can give a brief introduction to the workshop and/or act as a panel moderator.
    2. Workshop organizers should state in their proposals how they will manage conflicts of interest in assessing submitted contributions. At a minimum, an organizer should not be involved in assessing a submission from someone within the same organization.
    3. Workshop organizers or any person having personal COI with them cannot submit papers to these workshops (e.g., if you organize a workshop, your PhD student or postdoc should not submit to your workshop)
    4. No additional organizers can be added after the proposal submission deadline due to COI.
  5. Organizer Limits
    1. Workshop proposals involving more than 8 organizers will not be accepted. We encourage sensible limits up to 5-6 organizers.
    2. We do not permit any organizer to be listed on more than 2 workshop proposals.
    3. It is the organizers’ responsibility to ensure that the above quota is not exceeded. An offending organizer will be either removed from all proposals (by agreement with all other co-organizers) or the offending workshop(s) will be desk rejected.
  6. LLM Policies
    1. We follow the 2026 Handbook in terms of the LLM policy broadly (but all points below apply): MainTrackHandbook 
    2. We highlight that organizers are responsible for their proposal wording. No hallucinations are allowed, and we reserve the right not to accept proposals with hallucinated content or injected prompts. See ``Author Use of Agents and Large Language Models (LLMs)’’ in the link referenced above.
    3. Reviewers are not allowed to use LLM, i.e., please see ``Confidentiality of Submissions’’ and ``Reviewer Use of Agents and Large Language Models’’ in the link referenced above.
    4. We underscore that we do not allow LLM use by reviewers and we DO NOT follow or implement ``experiment [...] in which every reviewer will have some papers for which they may use LLM’’ listed in the main policy.
 

Other Guidance and Expectations for Workshop Proposals 

 
  • We encourage and expect diversity in the organizing team and speakers. This includes the diversity of viewpoints and thinking regarding the topics discussed at the workshop, gender, race, affiliations, seniority, etc. If a workshop is part of a series, the organizer's list should include people who have not organized it in the past. Organizers should articulate how they have addressed diversity in their proposal in each of these senses.
  • Invited speakers should not give the same talk or very similar talks at multiple workshops.
  • Since the goal of the workshop is to generate discussion, the program needs to include sufficient time and structure for this. Proposals should explicitly articulate how they will encourage broad discussion. 
  • Workshop proposals should list explicitly the problems they would like to see solved or at least advances made as part of their workshop. They should explain why these are important problems and how holding their proposed workshop will contribute to their solution.
  • Workshops are not a venue for work that has been previously published in other conferences on machine learning or related fields. Work that is presented at the main NeurIPS conference should not appear in a workshop, including as part of an invited talk. Organizers should make this clear in their calls and explain in their proposal how they will discourage the presentation of already finalized machine learning work.
  • We encourage workshop submissions of varying lengths and scopes. Organizers should state whether their workshops are meant to be a large-attendance talk format or small group presentations. Organizers should articulate what they hope to achieve from the format of the proposal beyond the talks listed.
  • Workshops should have a clear and well-communicated agenda or schedule that outlines the topics and speakers to be presented, to provide attendees with the ability to choose which talks or sessions they want to attend based on the content being presented. Good workshops will put talk titles up publicly before site publication and note the archival status of their submissions. Organizers should articulate how they will do this.
  • Organizing a workshop is a complex task, and proposals should outline the organizational experience and skills of the proposed organizers (as a team). We encourage junior researchers to be involved in workshop organization, but prefer some collective experience in organizing a complex event.
  • Workshops must run within the venue’s operating hours only (we will provide more details as they become available to us)
 

Frequently Asked Questions From Past Workshops

 
  1. Workshop Series
    Although we ask for statistics and information if the workshop has been held before, we neither encourage nor discourage workshops on topics that have appeared before. Membership in an existing sequence of workshops is irrelevant in the assessment of a workshop proposal (it neither helps nor hinders). Workshop proposals will be evaluated solely on their merits for this year’s conference. That said, proposals from the workshop series are encouraged to differentiate from past versions, with refreshed design (content, organizers, format, etc.), to help reviewers evaluate the merits.
  2. Overlapping Proposals
    We will not forcibly merge proposals. If multiple strong proposals are submitted on similar topics, we might accept 1-2 workshops in overlapping topics to curate the best workshop program.
  3. Venue and Room Size Preference
    Although we will make every effort to satisfy venue and room size preferences of accepted workshops, we cannot guarantee to be able to fulfill all such requests. We will inform applicants about the venue decision in the metareview.
  4. Publishing Accepted Papers
    All NeurIPS workshop papers are non-archival and therefore do not appear in proceedings. We leave it to the organizers whether they wish to provide access to accepted papers on OpenReview or other platforms (be sure to inform authors on your website how/if you will provide access to the accepted papers).
 

Common Pitfalls From Past Workshops

 
  1. Insufficient time for discussion
    Too many invited speakers—some proposals listed a dozen or more—do not make for a great audience experience, and a workshop with nothing but long-form talks is unlikely to yield breakthroughs. We encourage organizers to allocate more time to contributed talks and posters, as well as to open discussion.
  2. Leaning too heavily on past success
    Proposals for workshops in a series sometimes lean too heavily on the declared popularity of prior workshops. In some cases, this led to proposals that were less creative and innovative than we had hoped.
  3. Unconfirmed or irrelevant speakers
    The vast majority of proposals included lists of confirmed invited speakers. This made it hard to champion any workshop that didn’t have at least a few speakers confirmed, especially when many unconfirmed big-name speakers were listed (it’s unlikely all would say yes), or when the diversity statement centered on the assumed presence of unconfirmed speakers. There were also several proposals featuring long lists of “celebrity” speakers, with little relevance to the workshop's topic.
  4. Going too big
    We saw only a few proposals that we felt were too narrow, but many we found too broad. There seems to be a tendency to overreach for the sake of going big, while we’d prefer to see more focused workshops.
  5. Too many organizers or organizing too many workshops
    Several proposals had remarkably large organizing committees. It’s not clear why more than five or six organizers would be necessary for a workshop. Similarly, organizing too many workshops can be a negative factor in the quality of workshops.
  6. Lack of diversity
    We believe that the most impactful workshops are those that serve as a global stage for a wide range of voices. In previous years, we have seen proposals with very narrow representation and diversity of organizers and/or speakers, such as teams made up of a single gender, or a single institution, etc. We strongly encourage organizers to look beyond their immediate circle. By building a team that is diverse in gender, career stage, geography, and background (bridging academia and industry), a workshop will naturally attract a broader audience and give voice to various points of view, new perspectives, and innovative ideas.