The 45th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
July 6-10, 2026, Royal Holloway, University of London
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DATES (all times are AoE)
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All deadlines are at 23:59 AoE in the year 2026.
Abstract submission: February 11, 2026
Full paper submission: February 16, 2026
Notification: April 29, 2026
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websites:
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submission site: https://podc26.hotcrp.com/
conference site: https://www.podc.org
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SCOPE
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The ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing is an
international forum on the theory, design, analysis, implementation
and application of distributed systems and networks. We solicit papers
in all areas of distributed computing. Papers from all viewpoints,
including theory, practice, and experimentation, are welcome.
The goal of the conference is to improve understanding of the principles
underlying distributed computing. Topics of interest include,
but are not limited to the following (in alphabetical order).
- biological distributed algorithms and systems
- coding and reliable communication
- combinatorics and topology of distributed computing
- communication networks
- concurrency, synchronization, and persistence
- design and analysis of concurrent and distributed algorithms and data structures
- distributed and cloud storage, replication and consistency
- distributed computing for machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data
- distributed graph algorithms
- distributed ledgers and decentralized finance protocols
- distributed operating systems, middleware, and databases
- distributed resource management and scheduling
- fault-tolerance, reliability, self-organization, and self-stabilization
- game-theoretic approaches to distributed computing
- high-performance, cluster, cloud and grid computing
- internet applications
- lower bounds and impossibility results for distributed computing
- mobile computing, population protocols and autonomous agents
- models and languages for distributed computing
- multiprocessor and multi-core architectures and algorithms
- peer-to-peer systems, overlay networks, and social networks
- quantum and optics based distributed computing
- security and cryptography in distributed computing
- specifications, semantics, verification, and formal methods for
distributed systems
- system-on-chip and network-on-chip architectures
- transactional memory
- wireless, sensor, mesh, and ad hoc networks
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PAPER SUBMISSION
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A submitted paper should clearly motivate the importance of the problem
being addressed, discuss prior work and its relationship to the paper,
explicitly and precisely state the paper s key contributions, and
outline the key technical ideas and methods used to achieve the main
claims. A submission should strive to be accessible to a broad audience,
as well as having sufficient details for experts in the area.
Regular Papers: A regular paper must report on original research that
has not been previously published. It is not permitted to submit the
same material concurrently to journals or conferences with proceedings.
Format and length requirements for submissions are stated below.
Brief Announcements: A brief announcement may describe work in progress
or work presented elsewhere. A brief announcement may also report on
original research results that can be fully presented in the limited
space available. The title of a brief announcement must begin with
Brief Announcement: .
Use of AI tools: If any AI tools were used in preparing a submission
(beyond copyediting or use of internet search tools), the nature of the
usage should be disclosed in the submission for the sake of transparency.
If AI tools are used, authors remain accountable for the content of the
paper, including avoiding plagiarism and providing appropriate citations
of sources.
Submission format: All submissions should be typeset using 11-point or
larger fonts, in a single-column, single-spaced format with ample spacing
throughout and 1-inch margins all around, on letter-size
(8 1/2 x 11 inch) paper.
Alternatively, submissions can be prepared using the official ACM Master
article LaTeX template acmart.cls, version 1.80 or greater,
using the following documentclass instruction:
\documentclass[acmsmall,nonacm,anonymous]{acmart}
The template is available at
https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template.
The following instructions equally apply in both cases.
Regular submissions should start with a title page consisting of the
title of the submission, no author information (see paragraph on
double-blind reviewing below), and a brief abstract summarizing the
submission s contributions. There is no page limit and authors are
encouraged to use the full version of their paper as the submission.
Each submission should contain within the initial 10 pages following the
title page a clear presentation of the merits of the submission,
including a discussion of the submission s importance within the context
of prior work and a description of the key technical and conceptual ideas
used to achieve its main claims. A submission should include all
information necessary for an expert to fully evaluate the paper s
central claims, including full proofs and experimental results,
where applicable. Although there is no bound on the length of a
submission, material other than the abstract and the first 10 pages
will be read at the committee s discretion. Authors are encouraged to put
the references at the very end of the submission.
Brief announcement submissions must have a length of at most 5 pages
including title, abstract, and references.
Submissions not conforming to the rules stated in this call and
submissions outside the scope of the conference may be rejected without
consideration.
Best practices for citations: Alphabetical orderings of authors can lead
to biases. Therefore, authors are encouraged to avoid et al. in
citations, and instead mention all author names.
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AWARDS
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All regular papers are eligible for the best paper award. A regular paper
is eligible for the best student paper award if the author(s) principally
responsible for the paper s contributions are full-time students at the
time of submission. The program committee may decline to make these
awards or may split them.
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DOUBLE-BLIND REVIEWING
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The conference will employ a lightweight double-blind reviewing process.
Submissions should not reveal the identity of the authors in any way.
In particular, authors names, affiliations, and email addresses should
not appear anywhere in the submission. Nothing should be done in the name
of anonymity that weakens the submission or makes the job of reviewing the
submission more difficult. In particular, important references should
not be omitted or anonymized. In addition, authors are free to disseminate
their ideas or draft versions of their submission as they normally would.
For example, authors may post drafts of their submissions on the web,
submit them to arXiv, and give talks on their research ideas.
Authors with further questions on double-blind reviewing are encouraged
to contact the PC chair by email.
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CONFLICT OF INTEREST
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Indications of conflicts of interest will be required in the submission
form.
A conflict of interest is limited to the following:
- A family member or close friend.
- A Ph.D. advisor or advisee (no time limit), or postdoctoral or
undergraduate mentor or mentee within the past five years.
- A person with the same affiliation.
- A person involved in an alleged incident of harassment. (It is not
required that the incident be reported.)
- Frequent collaborators, or collaborators who have jointly published
papers within the last two years.
If you feel that you have a valid reason for a conflict of interest not
listed above, contact the PC chair or one of the SafeTOC Advocates
affiliated with this conference (Faith Ellen, Idit Keidar and
Andrea Richa). The PC chair may request that a SafeTOC advocate
confidentially verify the reason for a conflict of interest.
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PUBLICATION
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Accepted regular papers of up to 10 pages and brief announcements of
up to 3 pages in two-column ACM proceedings format will be included in
the conference proceedings. They must be formatted with the ACM Master
templates using
\documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}.
If more space is needed for an accepted paper than is available in the
proceedings, a full version must be made available publicly, e.g.
on arXiv, by the due date for the proceedings version, and the proceedings
version must refer to the full version.
The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made
available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks
prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date
affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.
It is expected that papers that are published at PODC 2026 will be
presented by one of the authors in person at the conference.
In exceptional circumstances (e.g., because of visa issues),
a limited number of exceptions can be approved by the PC chair.
A paid conference registration by one of the authors of each accepted
paper will be required in any case.
Extended and revised versions of selected papers will be considered for
a special issue of the journal Distributed Computing. Up to two selected
papers will be considered for publication in the Journal of the ACM.
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Open Access and Article Processing Charge
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Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access.
All ACM publications, including the PODC 2026 conference proceedings,
will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for
publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional
model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). If a corresponding
author s institution is on the list of institutions participating
in ACM Open, then there will be no APC. Otherwise, each paper will
require an APC of
- $250 for ACM/SIG members, or
- $350 for non-members,
unless the authors qualify for a financial waiver. For information
on waivers and discounts, see
https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/policy-on-discretionary-
open-access-apc-waivers. Geographic waivers and discounts apply to
authors from certain countries. Discretionary waivers are rare and
are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.
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