Early CareerICSA 2026

Call for Papers

The Early Career Researchers Forum (ECRF-ICSA2026) aims to motivate and bring together early career researchers, typically PhD students, PostDocs, and Assistant Professors, within the software architecture community. This forum serves as a dynamic venue for presenting and debating research at any stage—from initial ideas to long-term research plans. It offers an inclusive setting where early career researchers can receive feedback, share experiences, pose questions, and investigate various research opportunities.

Participation

Participation is open to PhD students, PostDocs, Assistant Professors, and anyone identifying as an early career researcher eager to share research ideas and preliminary results with peers. This forum is an excellent opportunity to inspire and be inspired, as well as to learn about various research paths. We also strongly encourage early career researchers who are presenting their work in the main track of ICSA 2026 to join and participate in this vibrant forum.

Topics

Areas of interest include all those associated with software architecture, as provided by the scope of ICSA 2026.

Type of Submissions

Ongoing Research Paper (max 6 pages, including references and any appendices): submissions should present previously unpublished research that includes motivation, objectives, preliminary results (if available), future steps, and the potential industry impact. These papers should detail early research ideas, such as a potential dissertation topic (e.g., for PhD students) or a proposal for a research line (e.g., for Assistant Professor), aiming to garner feedback from peers and mentors. Authors are encouraged to consider the potential impact of their research on industrial practice, whether immediate or long-term, and to include a dedicated section on the Industrial Impact of their work.

Recommendation Letter

A recommendation letter is required for PhD students and is optional for PostDocs and Assistant Professors. This letter should include:

• Your name and current academic or professional position
• A brief description of your current research status
• An endorsement supporting the publication of your submission

The letter should be in PDF format and should be signed by your advisor. The recommendation letter should be uploaded in Easychair along with the paper in a single PDF.

Formatting and Submission Instructions

All submissions must be submitted electronically via the EasyChair submission system (Early Career Researchers Forum track) by the submission deadline and must not have been published before. All submissions must conform to the IEEE paper formatting and submission instructions of the main track. All submissions must conform to the IEEE paper formatting and submission instructions.

Please note that this track does not apply a double-anonymous review process. Reviewers will be asked to treat submissions as confidential. Submissions should have one author only.

Publication and Attendance

All accepted contributions will be published in ICSA 2026 Companion proceedings and will appear in IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Note that the author of an accepted contribution is required to register and present the work at the conference. An in-person presentation is required.

Presentation and Discussion

Based on the number of attendees, we are planning to host two types of sessions: paper presentations, and mentoring sessions.

Paper Presentations. To further facilitate the discussions around the presented research topics, we plan to assign discussants to each presentation. The discussants assigned to each paper will make brief comments, including some combination of:

• How the paper made the discussant think differently about her/his own work
• How the paper is related in some way to the discussant’s own work
• Advice for the authors on how to continue their work
• Identification of collaboration opportunities or synergies
• Discussion questions based on the presented paper

Mentoring sessions. We intend to gather questions from early career participants that they want to explore and will organize sessions specifically aimed at discussing these queries. Additionally, if beneficial, we will tailor different sessions for PhD students, postdocs and new faculty members.