Journal FirstVARIABILITY 2026

Call for Contributions

VARIABILITY 2026 invites Journal-First presentations of papers recently published in leading software engineering journals, including TSE, TOSEM, IST, EMSE, JSS, ASEJ, SoSyM, and reputable open-access journals. This initiative provides authors with the opportunity to engage directly with the VARIABILITY community, while offering attendees a richer and more diverse program. The Journal-First papers remain published in their respective journals, and a one-page summary will be included in the VARIABILITY 2026 proceedings with a pointer to the original publication.

Scope

To qualify for a Journal-First presentation at VARIABILITY 2026, a paper must meet these criteria:

• It was published on the publisher’s website between November 2023 and March 2026.
• It fits within the scope of VARIABILITY 2026, as described in the research track call, and can bring new insights or directions to the community.
• It presents new research results or significant extensions of prior work that have not been presented at SPLC, VaMoS, or ICSR before.
• It has not been presented at, and is not under review for, Journal-First Tracks of other related conferences.

How to Submit

Authors of papers that meet the above criteria are invited to submit a short proposal for presentation. The proposal should be one page and include the following:

• Paper title, authors, extended abstract, and a link or DOI to the original journal paper.
• If the journal paper builds on or is related to previously published work (such as a poster or tool demo), the proposal must clearly explain why it should be considered a Journal-First paper.
• All proposals must be submitted as a PDF via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=variability2026 (Journal-First Track).
• Please upload both the proposal PDF and a ZIP file containing the original journal paper.

Accepted papers will be published in the VARIABILITY 2026 Proceedings. A Journal-First proposal must be at most one page long and it must follow the Springer guidelines: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines.

Evaluation and Selection

Proposals will be selected based on the quality of the publication and the journal, after confirming that the paper fits the scope of the conference. Since the papers have already been peer-reviewed and accepted by their journals, they will not undergo another technical review. The goal is to include as many papers as possible in the Journal-First Track. However, if an unusually high number of papers are received, some might not be accepted. If needed, priority will be given to papers that best align with the conference topics of interests and the structure of the sessions.

Important Dates (AoE)

• Journal-First Submissions Deadline: Thu 2 Apr 2026
• Journal-First Acceptance Notification: Mon 1 Jun 2026
• Journal-First Camera-ready Deadline: Wed 15 Jul 2026
• Submissions close at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12)

Conference Attendance

For each paper accepted into the Journal-First Track, at least one author must register for the conference and attend to give the oral presentation.