Process Overview
We continue the single PC Meeting model of Revise and Resubmit, adjusting parameters for ACs and Authors. This involves a threshold decision in round 1, where those above the threshold have 5 weeks to revise and resubmit (and rebut any comments as part of the author response), followed by a PC meeting to accept and reject resubmitted papers in round 2.
Figure 1. Flowchart showing the revise and resubmit process across authors, papers chairs, subcommittee chairs, associate chairs, and reviewers.
Desk Reject
Upon initial submission, the Papers chairs (PCs) and Subcommittee chairs (SCs) will determine whether the submission is appropriate for CHI or should be desk-rejected. Our reviewer pool is extremely overloaded; desk rejects are made to save reviewers’ time and ensure that authors get notified as soon as possible, so they can fix their work to send elsewhere.
Examples of desk rejects are:
- Incomplete submissions. N.b., this includes papers with obvious placeholder titles and/or abstracts at the abstract/metadata submission deadline, as well as papers that end abruptly and are obviously incomplete.
- The paper lacks anonymization.
- Leaving the author names in the paper or having a description or an acknowledgements section that reveals authors or the institution (e.g., places where user studies were conducted and specific supporting grant information).
- Not following anonymization guidelines such that deanonymization is obvious.
- Failure to declare concurrent submissions that are closely related.
- If you have such a submission, you must include an anonymized version of that submission as a concurrent submission within PCS. The same rule applies if your submission is built directly on a project described in a paper that is currently under review or in press at other venues.
- Failure to declare and/or cite authors’ prior publications that are closely related to the submission.
- Make sure you cite your prior publications by following our Anonymization Policy.
- Use of wrong submission formats.
- All submissions must use the template specified in the Call for Submissions page. Note that CHI has used the single-column format since 2021. Any submissions with other templates, including double-column and extended abstracts, will be desk rejected.
- Clearly out of scope for the conference (e.g., formal methods for interstellar microcontrollers).
- Not written in English.
- Obviously not a conference paper (e.g., patent disclosure, popular press article, a complete book, phd thesis, undergraduate report).
- Something is so broken in the paper that it makes it impossible to review.
- Excessively long papers without strong, clear justifications
- Incorrect self-selected categorization at submission time (e.g., a 12,000-word paper submitted as a short paper).
- Paper that is clearly unfinished or very sloppy: lots of typos, missing sections, missing references, formatting issues (including large white spaces).
- Paper that violates ACM policy on Plagiarism.
- Paper that violates CHI policy on LLM use.
Desk-rejected submissions will not be assigned to a reviewer, and their authors will receive a brief note about the rejection. Criteria for Desk Rejection may be applied to revised papers in the revise and resubmit process.
Update for CHI 2026: Assisted Desk Reject (ADR) Process
In addition to the existing desk reject criteria listed above, CHI 2026 introduces an Assisted Desk Reject (ADR) step, collaboratively performed by SCs and ACs. This change is designed to balance review workload and ensure due diligence. The newly added ADR criteria include:
- Grossly insufficient literature review to contextualize the contribution.
- Grossly insufficient methodological detail, conceptual clarity, or research transparency.
- Grossly insufficient data to support claims.
- A disproportionately small HCI contribution given the paper length.
ADR applies when a paper is out of scope or so far from acceptable as to make external reviews unnecessary. All ADR decisions involve SCs, both ACs, and final approval by the Papers Chairs, with authors receiving a constructive meta-review explaining the decision. For full details, see the revised CHI 2026 Desk Reject process.
Subcommittee and AC Assignment
For the submissions that are not desk rejected, SCs will check whether the selected subcommittee has sufficient expertise to review. In rare cases, SCs may choose to transfer papers that were initially assigned to their subcommittee to the secondary subcommittee chosen by the authors for more appropriate reviews. In exceptional cases, where the two subcommittees chosen by the authors do not have the right expertise to assess the submission, the SCs may choose to move it to another subcommittee with more appropriate expertise.
All SCs and ACs are instructed to declare their conflicts of interests based on institutions and previous collaborations during the paper bidding phase. ACs are also instructed to express their preferences (or bids) on which submissions they would like to review. In this bidding phase, the title and abstract are the central information resources for ACs to identify submissions they prefer to review. Therefore, it is very important for authors to write titles and abstracts that clearly convey the core contributions of their submissions.
SCs will then perform paper assignments to ACs. ACs will be asked to complete paper bidding before this assignment so that their preferences and expertise are considered. Each submission will have two ACs, one as the primary AC (1AC) and the other as the secondary (2AC). The 1AC is aware of the authors of the papers in order to best determine whether external reviewers are conflicted. The external reviewers are never aware of the authorship of the papers they review. The identity of the authors is revealed to the 2AC during the decision meeting phase of the process.
Round 1 Review Process
The 1AC will manage the review process and recruit two external reviewers to assess each submission that undergoes full review. The 2AC will provide a full review like the external reviewers. External reviewers should have sufficient expertise on the topic of the paper(s) they are asked to review. As part of the review process Papers Chairs and Subcommittee Chairs reserve the right to get additional input from other ACs for any paper so as to make the best decision for acceptance. External reviewers will be asked to provide a detailed review of the submission and will be asked to provide a first round recommendation among the following five choices.
- Accept with minor revisions (A)
- Accept with minor revisions or Revise & Resubmit (ARR)
- Revise & Resubmit (RR)
- Revise & Resubmit or Reject (RRX)
- Reject (X)
Based on recommendations, papers will then fall into two groups:
Revise and Resubmit: Any paper that receives at least one review recommending RR or higher (A, ARR, RR, but not RRX, X) from either the 1AC or 2AC will be given the opportunity to make changes and submit a version (with tracked changes) along with an author response to the reviews. If your reviews are positive, this may not involve many changes, but more borderline reviews may involve more work. Authors that meet this minimum threshold will have 5 weeks to respond as they see fit. Note: at this stage, no papers are accepted, and as many as 50% of R&R papers may be rejected during the second round of reviewing.
Reject: Papers where both AC recommendations are X (Reject) or RR/X (between Revise and Reject) will be considered below the threshold to revise and resubmit, and so will be rejected. Note that unlike typical journals, the time frame for the Revise and Resubmit process is limited to a fixed length. A submission will thus be rejected if the reviewers feel that the required revisions would not be achievable within the time frame. Unlike journals, a rejection in round 1 should be taken to indicate that the work would not be ready for this year’s CHI, not that it has no place at CHI at all.
SCs will ensure that for each paper all ACs and external reviewers will confer asynchronously to determine the first round summary judgment.
Resubmission and Round 2 Review Process
Authors of the papers with the Revise and Resubmit recommendations are invited to submit a revision of their submission, and a response to reviewers, by the resubmission deadline (see Important Dates). Note that author lists are not allowed to be changed.
Revisions should use colors to highlight the changes to the document, and also include a response letter on how the reviewer comments have been addressed. The authors may communicate anonymously through the submission system with the 1AC for clarifications. If the 1AC does not respond, the authors should contact the SCs. No resubmission will be allowed after the deadline. Note: authors should check all resubmission files carefully for anonymity, including that highlighted changes are not attributed to an author. Failure to conform with the CHI Anonymization policy could result in a desk rejection of the whole submission.
All the resubmissions will be reviewed by the original set of ACs and external reviewers. The 1AC reserves the right to invite new reviewers if needed. The results of the current review(s) and online discussions will be shared with the new reviewers in such cases. The result of the second round review is either Accept with Minor Revisions or Reject. Authors do not have a chance for another round of major revisions.
