Student Research Workshop (SRW) Chair Handbook
Current Team:
Student Research Workshop Chairs
| Name | Affiliation | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Selene Báez Santamaría | University of Zurich | selene.baezsantamaria@uzh.ch |
| Sai Ashish Somayajula | Oracle AI | Ashish.somayajula@oracle.com |
| Atsuki Yamaguchi | University of Sheffield | ayamaguchi1@sheffield.ac.uk |
The chairs of the Student Research Workshop are responsible for:
* Assembling the SRW program committee, including reviewers and mentors.
* Setting up the submission and review process, including the timeline for submissions, reviews, and decisions.
* Arranging for their presentation (including the format, such as oral or posters, and all other special needs).
* Proposing SRW travel grant recipients (see policy on general student travel funding) in coordination with the ACL business manager, D&I chairs, and volunteer chairs.
Faculty Advisors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Tanja Samardzic | IDSIA USI-SUPSI |
| Marten van Schijndel | Cornell University |
The faculty advisors are responsible for: * Overseeing the organization of the SRW and providing suggestions to the chairs.
Overview of Responsibilities
The Student Session provides a valuable opportunity for the next generation of computational linguists to enter the CL community. It allows the best students in the field to take their first important step towards becoming professional computational linguists by:
- Receiving critical feedback on their work from experts outside their advisory team;
- Making contact with other students and key researchers in their field;
- Presenting their work formally in a professional setting.
The following are the main responsibilities of the Student Research Workshop Chairs:
1. Student Research Workshop Planning & Submission
2. Student Mentorship Program
3. Student Funding & Travel Grants
Breakdown of Responsibilities
1. Student Research Workshop Planning & Submission
The Student Research Workshop (SRW) is a forum to bring together students investigating various areas of Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for participants to present their work and to receive mentorship and valuable feedback from the international research community.
The workshop’s goal is to aid students at multiple stages of their education, including undergraduate, MSc/MA, junior and senior PhD students, in getting familiar with conducting and presenting their research.
A number of decisions can be made by the SRW Chairs, including: * Accepting both archival (i.e., included in conference proceedings) and non-archival (i.e., presented at the workshop but not published in proceedings) papers. * Criteria for student status (i.e., full-time v.s part-time, level of education [UG, PG, PhD], whether student status must be proven at the point of submission, etc.). * Policy on joint submissions with other conferences (excluding joint submission to both student and main conference sessions, which should be prohibited).
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Previous SRW Chairs & Introduce current SRW Chairs to Faculty Advisors | ASAP | Late Summer 2025 | - | (1) Gather insights on submissions, reviews, and challenges. (2) Estimate submission numbers for the upcomming workshop |
| Identify & Contact Reviewer Candidates | October 2025 | December 2025 | - | Collaborate with faculty advisors. |
| Set up OpenReview | October 2025 | November 2025 | - | Follow main conference timeline for camera-ready versions. |
| Contact Reviewers | November 2025 | December 2025 | - | Ensure diverse expertise; aim for 3 reviews/paper. |
| Plan & Publicize Call for SRW Papers | October 2025 | Paper submission deadline. | Must be approved by the Program Chairs. | Example Call for SRW papers.. It is convenient if one of the SRW chairs can obtain a write access to the EACL conference website GitHub repository. |
| Reviewing period | 23 December 2025 | 26 January 2026 | - | Aim to collect at least 3 reviews for each paper. |
| Emergency Reviewing period | 27 January 2026 | 30 January 2026 | - | Aim to collect at least 3 reviews for each paper. |
| Decision period | 30 January 2026 | 2 February 2026 | - | Make decisions on acceptance(oral/poster)/rejection based on the reviews. Get in touch with the publication chairs to organize the timeline for providing proceedings. |
| Submission Revision period | 3 February 2026 | 8 February 2026 | - | Collect all camera ready versions and signed ACL Copyright Transfer Agreement forms from accepted authors. Make sure authors have openreview account. IMPORTANT: This deadline is very time-sensitive, as all proceedings must be finalized 2–3 weeks before the conference begins. |
| Publicize Accepted Papers | February 2026 | February 2026 | - | Announce accepted papers on the conference website and through social media channels. |
| Plan SRW Schedule | February 2026 | March 2026 | - | Coordinate with the main conference schedule to avoid conflicts. Consider the format (oral/poster) and allocate time/room slots accordingly. This needs to be coordinated with the Program Chairs and ACL business manager. Once the program is |
| Plan SRW Awards | February 2026 | March 2026 | - | Decide on awards (e.g., Best Paper) and criteria for selection. Coordinate with the Program Chairs and ACL business manager for award logistics. |
2. Student Mentorship Program
The purpose of the Mentorship Program is to provide student researchers with an opportunity to discuss their ideas and receive constructive feedback from more experienced members of the computational linguistics community. Mentorship activities include detailed feedback on the writing, presentation, and content of submitted papers, helping authors polish their manuscripts before the final peer-review stage.
As part of the program, authors are encouraged to upload their manuscripts to a shared drive before the submission deadline. Mentors—selected from a pool of senior researchers—are then assigned one or two papers each via email. After the feedback deadline, mentors upload their comments in the form of annotated files through a shared submission form, which are then returned to the corresponding authors.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identify mentor candidates | September 2025 | October 2025 | - | Prioritize experienced researchers while maintaining demographic and expertise diversity. |
| Define the Pre-Submission Mentorship Program | September 2025 | October 2025 | - | Ensure the Call for Papers includes the Pre-Submission Mentorship Program. See also the "Student Research Workshop Planning & Submission" Responsibility. |
| Assign mentees | October 2025 | October 2025 | - | Pair based on research interests. |
| Distribute Mentor Feedback to Mentees | November 2025 | December 2025 | - | Offer presubmission guidance. |
3. Student Funding & Travel Grants
Pending approval, student funding and travel grants may be available to individuals submitting to the SRW. These subsidies cover things such as registration and travel/accommodation help, depending on individual need and available funding.
ACL strongly encourages students with financial hurdles to apply for both SRW and diversity and inclusion subsidies, as well as volunteering opportunities, to maximize their chances of waiving their registration fees.
See the ACL Policy on General Student Travel Funding for Conferences.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identify Funding Sources | September 2025 | December 2025 | - | Coordinate this with the General Chair and ACL business manager. Faculty advisors are responsible for submitting proposals to external funding agencies if possible (see a funding proposal example here). |
| Publicize Call for Subsidy Applications | January 2026 | February 2026 | - | |
| Allocate Subsidies | February 2026 | February 2026 | Subsidy applications closed. | (1) Prioritize underrepresented regions and financial need. (2) It is recommended to prioritize partial support to multiple students, rather than full support for a small number (if financially limited). (3) Travel grants require ACL Treasurer approval. |