Early Research Achievements (ERA)APSEC 2026

About the Early Research Achievements (ERA) Track

The Early Research Achievements (ERA) Track is a key component of the 33rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2026).

This track provides a dynamic platform for researchers — particularly those in the early stages of their research careers — to present emerging work, innovative ideas, and preliminary results.

The ERA Track serves as a bridge between formative research concepts and fully developed studies. It welcomes submissions that represent research at any stage of development. Unlike traditional tracks that focus primarily on completed research with comprehensive results, the ERA Track emphasizes the value of novel ideas, research directions, and approaches that have the potential to make significant contributions to the field of software engineering.

Objectives

The APSEC 2026 ERA Track aims to:

• Foster collaboration and knowledge exchange among software engineering researchers in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond
• Provide constructive feedback to researchers on their early-stage work
• Create networking opportunities for researchers with similar interests
• Promote innovative thinking and exploration of new research directions in software engineering
• Support early-career researchers in developing their ideas and research methodologies

Accepted Papers and Attendance Expectation

All accepted papers will be submitted to the IEEE CS Digital Library as part of the APSEC 2026 conference proceedings.

The maximum page limit remains the same: - Regular Paper: 5 pages - Short Paper: 2 pages

Important Policies After Acceptance

• The list of paper authors cannot be changed under any circumstances. The list of authors on camera-ready papers must be identical to those on the submitted papers.
• Paper titles cannot be changed except by permission of the Program Co-Chairs and only when referees recommend a change for clarity or accuracy.

Attendance Requirement:
If a submission is accepted, at least one author must register for APSEC 2026 and present the paper in person at the conference venue in Bali, Indonesia. Online presentation will not be allowed.

If an accepted paper is not presented, the paper will be removed from the conference proceedings.

Questions and Comments

If you have any questions regarding the ERA Track, please contact the Program Co-Chairs:

• Yutian Tang (Yutian.Tang@glasgow.ac.uk)
• Chien-Hung Liu (cliu@ntut.edu.tw)

Submissions to the ERA Track are particularly encouraged from early-career researchers, PhD students, and industry practitioners exploring new ideas.

Call for Papers

Early Research Achievements (ERA) Track

The Early Research Achievements (ERA) Track at APSEC 2026 provides a supportive forum for researchers to present and discuss ongoing research work at any stage — from initial ideas to preliminary results.

The track emphasizes getting constructive feedback, exchanging experiences, and exploring future research pathways. It focuses more on novel ideas and promising directions rather than fully completed and polished results.

The topics of interest for the ERA Track are the same as those of the Technical Track and the Software Engineering in Practice (SEIP) Track.

Submission Types

The APSEC 2026 ERA Track invites two types of submissions:

Regular Papers (Presented as Talk) - Maximum 5 pages (including appendices, figures, tables, and references) - Authors of accepted regular papers will be invited to give a talk at the conference.

Short Papers (Presented as Poster) - Maximum 2 pages (including appendices, figures, tables, and references) - Authors of accepted short papers will be invited to present a poster at the conference.

Note: Any submission longer than 2 pages will automatically be considered as a Regular Paper submission and evaluated accordingly.

Evaluation Criteria

Each submission will be reviewed by at least three program committee members. The main evaluation criteria are:

• Novelty and originality of the ideas
• Potential importance and impact to the software engineering field
• Soundness of the research approach and methods
• Clarity and quality of the presentation

Submissions must not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Submission Instructions

All papers must be submitted electronically through EasyChair:

Submission Link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=apsec2026

Requirements:

• Written in English
• Submitted as PDF format
• Use A4 paper size
• Conform to the IEEE Conference Proceedings Formatting Guidelines
• Comply with the IEEE Policy on Authorship

For LaTeX users:

\documentclass[10pt, conference]{IEEEtran}

Double-Blind Reviewing Policy

IMPORTANT: The Technical Track uses a double-blind reviewing process. This means that author identities must remain hidden from reviewers throughout the review process. Authors are required to make every reasonable effort to preserve anonymity and must follow these guidelines carefully. Submissions that violate the double-blind rules risk being desk-rejected without review.

These instructions are adapted from established double-blind practices (similar to those used in APSEC and other leading software engineering conferences).

Rules for Anonymizing Submissions

• Omit author names and affiliations from the title page and throughout the paper. Do not include author information, institution names, or any identifying headers/footers.

• Cite your own related work in the third person.
  Incorrect: “We build on our previous work [10]…”
  Correct: “We build on the work of [10]…”
  This applies to all self-references.

• Anonymize references when necessary.
  If a submission is a clear follow-up to your prior published work and third-person citation would still obviously reveal authorship, you may anonymize the reference itself at submission time.
  Example:
  “Based on previous results [10]”
  Reference entry: “[10] Anonymous Authors. Omitted for double-blind reviewing.”
  Important: The submitted paper must remain self-contained and understandable without requiring access to the anonymized prior work. Reviewers will not be asked to read external papers to evaluate your submission.

• Do not include acknowledgements that could reveal identity (e.g., funding sources, grants, collaborators, institutions, or thanks to specific individuals). These may be added in the camera-ready version after acceptance.

• Avoid identifiable naming conventions.
  If your work uses a project name, tool name, dataset name, or acronym that could link back to you or your institution (e.g., “GoogleDeveloperHelper” or “MalangSELabTool”), rename it for the submission.
  Example: Change to “DeveloperHelper” or “GenericSELabTool” and note (if needed) that the name has been altered for double-blind reviewing.

• Anonymize institutional or contextual details.
  Instead of: “We conducted a user study with 200 undergraduates from our CS101 class at University X.”
  Use: “We conducted a user study with 200 students in an introductory computer science course.”
  For industry/organizational studies: Refer to the entity generically (e.g., “a large financial organization”, “a video game development company”, “Company A”) rather than naming it.
  Specific details that do not risk unblinding may be included if they are essential to understanding the contribution.

• Open Science and Artifact Sharing (Encouraged but Anonymized)
  We strongly support open science to promote reproducibility and impact. Authors are encouraged to share source code, datasets, scripts, survey instruments, and other artifacts.
  However, do not link directly to personal GitHub repositories, institutional pages, or any resource that could reveal identity.
  Instead, use anonymous or semi-anonymous archiving services such as:

• Zenodo (provides DOIs)
• Figshare
• Archive.org (especially for larger datasets)
  Upload your materials anonymously, obtain a DOI or permanent link, and reference it in the paper (e.g., “The replication package is available at [DOI link]”).
  These links should appear in the submitted paper itself.

Additional Advice

• Review your entire paper (including figures, captions, appendices, and supplementary material) for any accidental leaks of identity.
• When in doubt, err on the side of more anonymization.
• The Program Co-Chairs reserve the right to desk-reject submissions that do not adequately anonymize author identities.

Questions about the double-blind policy? Contact the Technical Track Program Co-Chairs:
- Nur Hazbiy Shaffan
- Anis Rahmawati Amna

By following these guidelines, you help ensure a fair, unbiased, and high-quality review process for all submissions.

All submissions must be the original work of the listed authors.

The use of AI-based tools is permitted only for minor linguistic assistance, such as grammar correction, spelling correction, and improving clarity of writing. However, the use of generative AI tools to produce or substantially generate original research content, scientific claims, experimental results, analysis, or manuscript text is strictly prohibited.

By submitting a paper, authors confirm that:

• The submission is an original work created by the listed authors.
• The core intellectual contributions, including the research ideas, methodology, results, and conclusions, were developed by the authors.
• The paper is not generated (fully or partially) by generative AI tools in a way that replaces author originality.

Violations of this policy may result in desk rejection, removal from the proceedings, and reporting to the authors’ institutions or funding bodies where appropriate.