Call for Papers

RSS 2026 welcomes Science/Systems papers that report on novel scientific and systems contributions, and will be reviewed via a double-blind review process. As always, we solicit your best work.

Important Dates

Paper Format

A template for paper submissions is available in LaTeX or Word. Do not modify the formatting provided in the templates. Any change to font sizes, page dimensions, line spacing, etc. may result in a Desk Rejection, or lead to delays in publication. Please do not include any additional markings such as “Draft” or To “appear in …” on the pages. Make sure your paper does not contain page numbers.

We only accept a PDF format for the main submission file. Delays in the production of proceedings are usually caused by PDF file submissions that do not embed all fonts.

Before submitting your PDF file, please open it in Acrobat Reader. In the File menu under Document Properties, you will find information on the fonts used by your document. The PDF file must only contain Type-1 fonts (and Embedded True Type fonts if prepared under Word). On Linux, you may also use pdffonts. Below are instructions to embed PDF fonts for various typesetting systems:

• Overleaf
• Acrobat
• dvips

Paper Length

RSS 2026 has a maximum paper length of 8 pages, excluding references. Remember however that this is a ceiling, not a floor, and reviewers are likely to look favorably upon papers that are not unnecessarily long or verbose.

The main PDF should contain a concise and lucid presentation of the merits of the paper, including a discussion of its contributions, prior work, and a description of key technical ideas and methods used. The paper should be self-contained and include all the material necessary for an expert to verify the central claims in the paper.

Additional supplemental text, such as appendices, data listings, or expanded proofs, should be included as supplementary material (see below). Reviewers will review supplemental material at their discretion.

Rationale: After RSS 2025 had no hard limit on paper length, we received widespread feedback from (Senior) Area Chairs and Reviewers requesting re-introduction of page limits to encourage authors to be concise, in recognition of the effort it takes to review the work. Furthermore, a hard page limit implicitly encourages submission of a result with the right level of granularity for the conference. We understand that both models (with or without page limits) have their merits, and reasonable researchers can make (and have made) the case for either. Depending on feedback from the community, we might keep tweaking this policy in the future.

Double-Blind Submission

RSS 2026 continues the tradition of double-blind reviews. Authors should not list their names on the title page, and anonymity should be maintained in the paper. Authors are asked to take particular care when referencing their own work — careless use of self-citations can easily violate the requirements for double blind reviewing and this will result in papers being desk rejected.

The following principles should be applied for all submissions:

• Authors’ names and affiliations should not appear anywhere in the title or text of the submission, except for in the References section, subject to the guidelines below.
• Acknowledgments to people or funding agencies should not appear in the submission.
• There should be no links to external websites (e.g. YouTube, github, authors institute pages) in the blinded submission. We recommend avoiding links even if they are anonymized. Links to external resources can be provided (and are highly encouraged) in the final camera-ready version of the paper.
• Authors must ensure that all metadata associated with the submission is anonymized.

In self-citing authors’ previous work, avoid expressions such as “In the authors earlier work …”, rather use alternative expressions such as “In previous work …” or “In related work …”, in a manner that does not distinguish their own work from the work of others: self-citations should be indistinguishable from citations of others, in terms of style and treatment. As a general rule, if an RSS paper builds on the authors’ previous work, then the amount of novel material in this paper should be exactly the same as if it was building on another group’s work. Authors should thus cite all work, including their own, as required for the completeness of the submission.

In presentation of experimental work, avoid logos in pictures, or overt references to an individual laboratory. Use expressions such as “The experimental equipment …” rather than “The University of XYZ’s Robby the Robot …”. Otherwise, authors should include photographs, graphics and other presentation material as in the normal manner for a paper submission.

Please note that, as discussed below, it is acceptable to submit to RSS work that has been made available as a preprint on sites such as arXiv. Reviewers will be instructed to not search preprint servers for de-anonymized versions of papers that have been assigned to them. However, this policy is impossible to enforce strictly. Thus, authors that chose to publish and/or advertise their paper as a preprint during the RSS review process should be aware that they run the risk of reviewers becoming aware of their identity. If authors want to ensure their anonymity during the review process, they should not publish or advertise preprints.

Any paper that breaks anonymity in a manner that is not consistent with the guidelines above will be subject to desk rejection.

Supplementary Materials

Authors may submit supplementary material such as a video or an expanded version of a proof. The deadline for supplementary material is a few days after the paper submission deadline. Note that reviewers are not required to view this material and include it in their assessment of the paper.

Authors must ensure that all external links are removed for the initial and revised submissions, to ensure that their identities are not revealed for regular papers. External links are welcome to be included in the final camera-ready version of the paper.

Rebuttal Process

A subset of papers will be invited to submit one-page rebuttals that will be considered by reviewers and the Program Committee when making final acceptance decisions. A template for the rebuttal will be made available in due time. Detailed information about the rationale and scope of the rebuttal process can be found in our Review Guidelines

Review Guidelines

This year, we are providing a new set of guidelines for reviewers: Review Guidelines

Demos

RSS 2026 will not have a separate category for demo papers. If the authors of an accepted paper intend to present a live demo, we applaud their choice, and will do our best to provide them with the needed resources (e.g. space, power) to do so, most likely during the poster session where the paper is assigned. However, acceptance decisions will not take into account the likelihood of a live demo during the conference.

Multiple Submissions

Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to versions that have been previously published, or accepted for publication, or that have been submitted in parallel to other conferences are not appropriate for RSS and violate the conference’s dual submission policy. Exceptions to this rule are the following:

1. Submission is permitted for papers presented or to be presented at conferences or workshops that do not have published proceedings, or with only abstracts published.
2. It is acceptable to submit to RSS work that has been made available as a technical report (or similar, e.g., in arXiv) without citing it.

Plagiarism

RSS is intolerant of plagiarism. Submitted papers are expected to contain original work executed by the authors with adequate, proper, and scholarly citations to the work of others. It is the job of the authors to clearly identify both their own contribution(s) and published results / techniques on which they depend or build. RSS reviewers are charged to ensure these standards are met. In cases of alleged plagiarism, the program chair will be guided by Section 8.2.4 Allegations of Misconduct as laid out by the IEEE in this document.

Use of AI-Generated Text

Policies around the use of text generated or “polished” by AI agents or LLMs are difficult to formulate and enforce uniformly and fairly. As such, we do not have a formal policy on this topic.

However, it is important to note that authors are completely responsible for any text that is included in their submission, including text generated by an AI agent. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring that the entirety of the submission meets our standards on plagiarism, ethics, that all citations are appropriate, and that all results are completely reproducible. If any part of a submission violates these guidelines, the authors will bear responsibility, regardless of the source of the text.

Uploading Files for Paper Submissions

Paper submission and review will occur in the OpenReview system:

• Logging into the system: All first authors require an OpenReview account. If you already have an OpenReview account, use those credentials to login and update your profile. If you do not, sign up as a new user. New OpenReview profiles created without an institutional email will go through a moderation process that can take up to two weeks. New OpenReview profiles created with an institutional email will be activated automatically.
• Although we use OpenReview, the review process will be private, i.e., the papers will only be public after acceptance and the reviews will not be publicly visible.
• Conflict domains: When you login for the first time, OpenReview will prompt you to enter your conflict domains. If you already have an OpenReview account, update your conflict domains. Please finish this step before you start the submission process.
• Abstract Submission: All submissions require the title/abstract of their paper(s) to be submitted by January 23, one week before the full paper submission. The PDF and Supplementary Material are not required for the title/abstract deadline, but must be uploaded by the time of their respective deadlines.
• Paper submission: Make sure your role is “Author”. Your main submission file may now be uploaded. Paper descriptions must be in the conference style format and must be submitted as a PDF. Submissions may be edited, updated and replaced up to the paper submission deadline.
• Paper ID: After clicking the Submit link, your paper submission will be assigned an ID. To make sure your PDF submission is reviewer-friendly, enter this ID at the end of your title as instructed in the paper template.
• Supplementary material: Authors may submit supplementary material, such as a video or an expanded version of a proof (100MB max, accepted formats: zip). The link to upload Supplementary Material is available from the start, but is not required until the Supplementary Material deadline. The deadline for the submission of supplementary material is one week after the deadline for paper submissions.