Visions and Emerging Results TrackICSME 2026

Call for Papers

Goal and Scope

ICSME 2026 Visions and Emerging Results Track seeks to construct a forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss innovative, thought-provoking new ideas, and research directions in the early stages of research.

We invite two types of papers:

1. Innovative, groundbreaking new ideas supported by promising initial results, such as:

   • Innovative research trajectories are in their early stages of research, backed by preliminary findings.

   • Counter-intuitive or disruptive results that contradict existing literature or widely-held assumptions, supporting a call for fundamentally new research directions.

2. Visions of the future, such as:

   • Bold visions of new directions that may not yet be supported by solid results but rather by a strong and well-motivated scientific intuition. Examples include unusual synergies with other disciplines or the importance of software engineering in problems whose software engineering aspects have not been studied earlier.

   • Summaries of recently-funded, large-scale, or highly innovative research projects (e.g., NSF, ERC grants). These papers should outline the core vision and the key open questions or initial grand challenges the project aims to address, serving as a basis for early community feedback.

Submissions must clearly motivate and illustrate initial evidence (type 1) or a rationale (type 2) for changing current practice and/or research in software maintenance and evolution.

The topics of interest for this track are the same as for the main research track, that is, all the topics in software maintenance and evolution research and practice. However, authors are encouraged to combine these topics in new ways to establish connections to other fields outside of classical software engineering, as well as to argue for the importance of software engineering research in areas not explicitly listed. Papers submitted to ICSME NIER 2026 must not have been published elsewhere, and must not have been under review or submitted for review elsewhere during consideration for ICSME NIER 2026.

Evaluation

Submissions will be evaluated on how well they characterize the following:

• Value: the problem is worth exploring
• Impact: the potential to challenge/disrupt current practices, as well as the potential to stimulate discussion
• Originality: the novelty of the paper’s insights
• Quality: quality and consistency of presentation
• Contextualization: Appropriate comparison with related work

Innovative, groundbreaking new ideas (type 1) papers will also be evaluated according to:

• Surprise: startling and unexpected findings

Visions of the future (type 2) papers will also be evaluated according to:

• Validity: soundness of the rationale

Special emphasis will be put on the originality and timeliness of the proposed contribution, that is, a full evaluation of the proposed ideas is not required. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three members of the ICSME NIER 2026 Program Committee.

Publication and Presentation

Upon notification of acceptance, all authors of accepted papers will be asked to complete an IEEE Copyright form and will receive further instructions for preparing their camera-ready versions. Accepted papers will be published in the electronic conference proceedings, which will also be available in the IEEE Digital Library.

Accepted papers will be presented in a formal setting. At least one author of the paper must register and present the paper at the conference for the paper to be published in the proceedings. More details about the presentations will follow the notifications.

Use of AI and LLMs

Authors should adhere to the guidelines for AI-generated content published by IEEE. IEEE requires that all content (including, but not limited to, figures, text, images, tables, and code) generated by AI be disclosed. The AI system should be identified, and specific sections of the article that utilize AI-generated content should be noted and accompanied by a brief explanation regarding the level of AI system involvement in producing the content. Read more at the link above. The paper chairs will investigate cases brought to their attention.

How to Submit

In the submission form, authors must clearly identify their paper as one of - Emerging Results - Visions (of the future).

Submissions will be reviewed following a double-anonymous reviewing process. Submitted papers must adhere to the following rules:

• Author names and affiliations must be omitted. (The track co-chairs will check for compliance before reviewing begins.)

• References to the authors’ own related work must be in the third person. (For example, not “We build on our previous work…” but rather “We build on the work of…”)

• Please see the Double-Anonymous Reviewing FAQ for more information and guidance.

• Submissions must be in English and conform to the ICSME 2026 Formatting Instructions. Please see the Research Track Call for Papers for more information.

• Papers must not exceed five pages for all text and figures, plus 1 page for references.

• All submissions must be in PDF format and submitted online through Easychair.

Submission Link

Please use the following link: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=icsme2026

Important Dates

All submission dates are at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)

• Abstract Submission: May 11, 2026
• Paper Submission: May 15, 2026
• Author Notification: June 28, 2026
• Camera-ready Submission: TBD

If you have any questions about the suitability of a paper, please contact the co-chairs, Fiorella Zampetti and Xing Hu.