Home » Analytics » Insights Into Submitting Authors of the Papers Track

Insights Into Submitting Authors of the Papers Track

By in Analytics, General on

By Sven Mayer and Guo Freeman

Traditionally, we only learn about the many authors who get their CHI submissions accepted and published. However, this does not provide a comprehensive understanding of the global HCI community and our ongoing efforts to advance HCI research. Therefore, we believe that examining who submits to CHI is extremely valuable for gaining insights into the community’s distribution and evolution worldwide. In this blog post, we provide detailed information about submitting authors of the papers track at CHI 2026, including: the location of the authors’ affiliations, the number of authors per submitted paper, submissions by country per subcommittee, and the number of submitted papers per author.  

Another potential factor that may affect where submitting authors have their primary affiliation is the location of CHI. Therefore, when reading this post, please note that CHI is taking place in Spain on the Iberian Peninsula in 2026. At the same time, we need to acknowledge that we also have people in the community who do not submit to CHI (or do not submit every year). Addressing both factors will require a cross-year effort to gain a more holistic understanding.

Submitting Authors by Location of Affiliation

First, we provide a comprehensive understanding of the submitting authors worldwide by the location of their affiliations. For this, we analyze the 6,725 valid submitted papers (excluding withdrawn papers), where we look at the number of unique authors. This year, 20,896 unique authors submitted to CHI. The vast majority of authors stated that they had affiliations in only one country (20511 authors). Only 380 have affiliations in two different counties, and 5 authors have affiliations in three counties. After normalizing for this, we present the distribution of the submitting authors’ affiliation origins, as shown in Figure 1 and Table 1. In total, authors submitted with affiliations from 87 different countries.

The world map shows the unique absolute number of authors per country based on affiliation location, using a green color scale where darker shades indicate higher author counts. The United States shows the highest number of affiliated authors, followed by China and several countries in Europe. Many countries across Europe, East Asia, and Oceania show moderate author counts, while parts of Africa, South America, and Central Asia show lower counts or no data. The visualization highlights the global distribution of CHI authorship by country.
Figure 1: Unique absolute number of authors per country based on their affiliation location.

Number of Authors per Submitted Paper

The raw number of authors per country would not be accurate if there were a bias in the number of authors per paper. Therefore, we look further into the number of authors per paper, as shown in Figure 2.

The histogram shows the distribution of the number of authors per paper. Most papers have between two and six authors, with the highest counts occurring around three to five authors. The number of papers decreases steadily as the number of authors increases, with relatively few papers having more than ten authors. Bars are stacked by first-round decision outcome, including Revise and Resubmit (RR), Reject after review (X1), Assisted Desk Reject (ADR), and Desk Reject (DR), showing that all decision types.
Figure 2: A histogram of the number of authors per paper.

Considering this distribution, Figure 1 would skew if there is an impact of country on the distribution. In fact, this has been demonstrated in a previous blog post for MobileHCI. Therefore, we also need to examine the average number of authors per paper by country, as shown in Figure 3. For this, we only consider papers written by authors affiliated with a single origin (4,566 papers have authors only from one country). A Kruskal-Wallis H-test confirms statistically significant differences in the number of authors across countries (H(58, n=4566) = 324.355, p<.001) based on papers submitted by authors from a single country (67.9% of all papers).

The world map shows the average number of authors per paper for each country based on affiliation location, using a blue-to-green color scale where darker and greener shades indicate higher averages. Most countries show averages between three and five authors per paper. Some countries in Southern Africa and parts of East and Southeast Asia show higher average author counts, while many countries in Europe and North America fall in the mid-range. Several regions, particularly parts of Africa and South America, show lower averages or have no available data. The visualization highlights geographic variation in average team sizes across countries.
Figure 3: Average number of authors per paper per country based on their affiliation location.

Origin of Submitted Papers

Recognizing that the number of authors per paper varies by country, we now need to revisit the origin of authors to understand where the fewest and most papers come from. This allows us to map the number of submissions per geographical location (country), as shown in Figure 4 and Table 1. However, keep in mind that this does not yet take into account the relative size and economic status of a country.

The world map shows the normalized number of papers per affiliation country, using a green color scale where darker shades indicate higher normalized paper counts. The United States and China appear with the highest normalized contributions, followed by several countries in Europe and East Asia. Many countries in South America, Africa, and parts of Southeast Asia show lower normalized values or no data. The visualization highlights differences in relative paper contributions across countries after normalization, enabling comparison independent of absolute submission volume.
Figure 4: Normalized number of papers per affiliation country.

Now, this view is distorted as not all counties are the same size (e.g., in terms of citizens). Thus, considering the population of the counties is important. For this, we rely on the data collected on Wikipedia. Figure 5 shows the number of normalized papers per million citizens. Another way to look at this is through the gross domestic product (GDP), e.g., the efficiency of spending the GDP on submitting CHI papers. For this, we rely on the IMF data (Retrieved 24 October 2025). Figure 6 shows the outcome for each country. All numbers are also presented in Table 1.

Figure 5: Normalized number of papers per affiliation country per 1 million citizens.
Figure 6: Normalized Number of Papers per 1 trillion US$ GDP.

Submissions by Country per Subcommittee

Next, we look into which subcommittee the authors submitted to based on the country of their affiliation. However, subcommittees do not have the same number of submissions. After normalizing for that, Figure 7 shows which country submits to which subcommittee the most. Figure 8 further maps countries and the subcommittees to which they submit the most papers, respectively.

The stacked bar chart shows the percentage distribution of paper submissions by country for each CHI subcommittee. Each bar represents one subcommittee and is normalized to 100 percent, with the total number of submissions shown above each bar. Only countries contributing at least 2.5 percent of submissions within a subcommittee are displayed, using ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 country codes, while all remaining countries are grouped as ‘Other.’ Across most subcommittees, submissions are dominated by a small number of countries, particularly the United States, China, and several European countries, with varying contribution patterns depending on the subcommittee. The figure highlights how national submission profiles differ across research areas.
Figure 7: Paper submissions by country per subcommittee. Only countries that submit at least 2.5% of all submissions per subcommittee are shown. Country abbreviation according to ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3.
The world map shows, for each country, the CHI subcommittee to which it submits the largest number of papers. Countries are colored by subcommittee, with a legend indicating research areas such as Accessibility, Design, Learning, Health, User Experience and Usability, and others. The visualization reveals geographic patterns in dominant submission topics, with different regions showing distinct subcommittee preferences. Many countries share the same dominant subcommittee, while others differ, highlighting regional variation in research focus across the CHI community.
Figure 8: The map highlights countries and the subcommittees to which they submit the most papers, respectively.

Number of Submitted Papers per Author

Of the 20,972 unique authors, each submitted on average 1.53 papers (SD = 1.48). However, most authors (N = 15,831) contributed to only one paper. Only 470 authors submitted more than 5 papers, 96 submitted more than 10 papers, and 11 authors submitted more than 20 papers. Figure 9 shows the full distribution.

The bar chart shows the number of submitted papers per author, with the y-axis displayed on a logarithmic scale for readability. Most authors have submitted only one paper, with rapidly decreasing counts for authors submitting two, three, or more papers. A small number of authors appear as outliers with very high submission counts, submitting more than 20 papers. The log-scaled y-axis highlights the long-tailed distribution of submissions per author.
Figure 9: Number of submitted papers per author. The y-axis is log-scaled for readability.

Authors who submitted more than one paper can also submit to different subcommittees. Figure 10 shows the distribution of the number of subcommittees per author. On average, these authors submitted to 2.2 subcommittees (SD = 1.2), with most (N = 2,565) submitting to two subcommittees. One author submitted to 15 out of the 18  different subcommittees at CHI 2026.

The bar chart shows the number of subcommittees to which authors with more than one submission have submitted papers, with the y-axis displayed on a logarithmic scale for readability. Most authors submit to only one or two subcommittees, with rapidly decreasing numbers of authors submitting to three or more subcommittees. Only a very small number of authors submit to more than ten subcommittees. The log-scaled y-axis highlights the long-tailed distribution of subcommittee breadth among repeat authors.
Figure 10: Number of subcommittees to which authors with more than one submission submitted. The y-axis is log-scaled for readability.

Authorship-Based Relationships Between Submissions

Next, we look into clusters of paper authors connected by authorship in other papers. We found that 1076 papers are not connected to any other papers, and thus, for no clusters. Another 1049 papers form 365 clusters; all clusters formed from more than 2 papers are visualized in Figure 11. Finally, the largest cluster is based on 4600 papers that are all connected by at least one author. The cluster is visualized in Figure 12. To give perspective on the clusters, they are colored by the Round 1 Outcomes.

The figure shows a grid of small network visualizations representing paper collaboration clusters, with nodes connected by edges to indicate co-authorship relationships. Each cluster corresponds to a group of authors on a paper and is color-coded by the Round 1 outcome: Desk Reject (DR), Assisted Desk Reject (ADR), Reject after review (X1), and Revise and Resubmit (RR). Clusters vary in size and structure, ranging from small triangles and lines to larger, more densely connected groups. The visualization illustrates the diversity of collaboration patterns across papers and how different review outcomes appear across these author network structures.
Figure 11: All three paper clusters color-coded based on the Round 1 outcomes.
The network visualization shows the largest collaboration cluster of paper authors, representing 4,600 papers. Nodes represent authors and edges represent co-authorship relationships, forming a dense central cluster with many interconnected authors and several peripheral branches. Nodes are color-coded by the Round 1 outcome of the associated papers: Desk Reject (DR), Assisted Desk Reject (ADR), Reject after review (X1), and Revise and Resubmit (RR). The visualization highlights the scale and density of the main collaboration network and shows that different review outcomes are intermingled throughout the cluster rather than forming separate regions.
Figure 12: The visualization of the top collaboration cluster, color-coded based on the Round 1 outcomes.
CountryAlpha-3Unique AuthorsNormalized AuthorsNormalized GDP PapersNormalized Population Papers
ArgentinaARG3.00.40.50.01
AustraliaAUS664.0220.0120.37.99
AustriaAUT194.563.5112.26.89
AzerbaijanAZE0.50.11.30.01
BangladeshBGD130.532.267.70.19
BelgiumBEL73.021.329.71.79
BhutanBTN2.00.4132.00.57
BrazilBRA111.530.213.40.14
CanadaCAN844.5332.1145.47.97
ChileCHL4.01.13.10.05
ChinaCHN3734.21053.154.30.75
ColombiaCOL5.51.53.50.03
Costa RicaCRI7.53.130.30.6
CroatiaHRV1.00.33.20.09
CyprusCYP29.59.4236.69.78
CzechiaCZE24.57.218.80.66
DenmarkDNK269.099.4216.316.51
EcuadorECU1.50.54.10.03
EgyptEGY7.53.08.70.03
EritreaERI1.00.3146.50.09
EstoniaEST13.56.6140.44.79
EthiopiaETH2.00.43.70.0
FinlandFIN246.095.6303.816.9
FranceFRA251.583.524.81.22
GermanyDEU1401.2480.095.75.75
GhanaGHA6.02.118.80.06
GreeceGRC17.04.917.30.47
GreenlandGRL1.00.3100.25.87
Hong KongHKG130.056.1130.97.45
HungaryHUN2.00.52.00.05
IcelandISL0.50.26.50.64
IndiaIND307.093.022.50.07
IndonesiaIDN4.50.70.50.0
Iran (Islamic Republic of)IRN9.03.08.50.04
IraqIRQ2.01.03.80.02
IrelandIRL112.036.251.16.63
IsraelISR71.522.436.62.2
ItalyITA233.867.726.61.15
JapanJPN586.5187.143.71.52
KazakhstanKAZ1.00.20.60.01
KenyaKEN21.52.518.30.05
Korea, Republic ofKOR1042.3365.9196.97.15
KuwaitKWT0.50.10.80.03
LiechtensteinLIE1.50.879.618.34
LithuaniaLTU2.00.22.60.09
LuxembourgLUX27.89.493.613.81
MacaoMAC12.54.891.06.69
MalawiMWI2.00.425.20.02
MalaysiaMYS25.57.115.10.21
MaltaMLT1.00.26.00.29
MexicoMEX19.56.33.40.05
NamibiaNAM1.00.217.00.08
NepalNPL7.00.511.00.02
NetherlandsNLD366.5120.191.06.63
New ZealandNZL82.031.7120.65.94
NigeriaNGA8.51.65.80.01
NorwayNOR45.014.528.02.58
PakistanPAK41.09.623.30.04
Palestine, State ofPSE1.00.214.60.04
PeruPER4.00.41.20.01
PhilippinesPHL11.03.67.30.03
PolandPOL74.519.318.60.52
PortugalPRT172.554.6161.55.08
QatarQAT11.53.315.11.05
RomaniaROU7.04.410.40.23
Russian FederationRUS27.010.94.30.07
RwandaRWA5.01.390.30.09
Saudi ArabiaSAU25.59.27.30.26
Serbia and Montenegro* SCG4.01.2
SingaporeSGP275.091.1158.714.91
SlovakiaSVK4.01.06.50.18
South AfricaZAF22.03.68.40.06
SpainESP158.548.825.80.99
Sri LankaLKA6.01.515.10.07
SwedenSWE211.885.1128.58.02
SwitzerlandCHE306.8103.7103.511.42
Taiwan, Province of ChinaTWN263.578.288.43.35
ThailandTHA16.54.37.60.06
TunisiaTUN8.04.575.90.37
TurkeyTUR19.57.85.00.09
UgandaUGA9.50.711.10.02
UkraineUKR2.00.52.40.02
United Arab EmiratesARE23.06.511.40.57
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandGBR1376.0463.3117.06.69
United States of AmericaUSA6616.02114.969.16.22
UruguayURY9.01.416.90.41
Viet NamVNM12.02.75.60.03
Table 1: Author and paper counts per county. Note: If authors have more than one affiliation, they contribute only partially to Unique Authors. *Serbia and Montenegro split in 2006, but it is still an option in PCS; however, no numbers are available.