In Brief

The annual SIGIR conference is the major international forum for the presentation of new research results, and the demonstration of new systems and techniques, in the broad field of information retrieval (IR). The 48th ACM SIGIR conference will be held in person in Padua, Italy, from July 13 to 18, 2025.

We invite students to apply to the SIGIR 2025 Doctoral Consortium. The Doctoral Consortium (DC) provides a unique opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests under the guidance of distinguished researchers from both academia and industry. Participation in the Consortium will allow students to share their work with peers as well as with senior researchers in the field.

The Doctoral Consortium is particularly suited for candidates who have made some research progress, but who are not so far along that they can no longer make changes in their research plans. Typically, this means that they have defined their topic and have completed some research, but still have at least a year of research remaining before completing a dissertation (in many universities this corresponds to the dissertation proposal stage).

The objectives of the Doctoral Consortium are:

• To provide a forum where doctoral students can present and discuss their research with experienced IR researchers, the members of the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee. To facilitate interactions with Program Committee members, students will be paired with at least one mentor.
• To provide students with an opportunity to establish a supportive community, including other doctoral students at a similar stage of their dissertation research.
• To contribute to the conference goals through in-person interaction with other researchers and conference events.

Important Dates for Doctoral Consortium Papers

Deadlines time zone: Anywhere on Earth (AoE)

• Doctoral Consortium Submissions Due: February 27, 2025
• Doctoral Consortium Notifications: April 4, 2025

Consortium Format and Participation Expectations

The Doctoral Consortium will take place the day before the main conference, Sunday 13 July. The event will be in person. We anticipate student presentations with plenary discussions, individual one-on-one meetings with experienced researchers, and interactive networking sessions.

To apply to participate in the Doctoral Consortium, doctoral students should submit a paper up to 5 pages (including all figures and references) along with a 1-page appendix (for details please see the submission guidelines below).

Candidates will be selected based on the potential of their research for future impact on the field of information retrieval, as well as for the likely benefit to the student from participating in the Doctoral Consortium. Note that SIGIR 2025 Doctoral consortium is deeply committed to improving the field of IR by making it more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We highly encourage women and students from other underrepresented groups to apply.

For each selected student, a one-page extended abstract will be published in the conference proceedings. Extended abstracts will be invited after selection and should not be submitted with the submission. Details will be shared with camera-ready instructions upon acceptance.

Doctoral students who submit to the Doctoral Consortium are allowed to have previously published their research and are encouraged to submit their work to the different SIGIR 2025 tracks and associated workshops.

Priority is given to students chosen to attend the Consortium when travel grants are determined for the conference. Application details for travel grants will be available on the SIGIR 2025 website (students must apply for the grant to be considered).

Submission Guidelines

The submitted paper, solely authored by the student, will be the basis for selection to participate in the Doctoral Consortium and subsequent detailed discussions at the Consortium. Therefore, the submitted paper should include:

• Motivation for the proposed research.
• Background and related work (including key references).
• Description of the proposed research, including main research questions.
• Research methodology and proposed experiments (where appropriate).
• Specific research issues for discussion at the Doctoral Consortium

In addition, the paper should include a 1-page appendix (placed after the references) with:

• A detailed statement by the student explaining why they want to participate in the SIGIR 2025 Doctoral Consortium at this point in their doctoral studies, and how they hope it will contribute to the development of their work and potential future career.
• A statement by the student's advisor/supervisor saying how the student would benefit by attending the Doctoral Consortium. Advisors should also specifically state whether the student has written, or is close to completing, a thesis proposal (or equivalent), and when they expect the student will defend their dissertation if they progress at a typical rate.

Format Requirements

Doctoral students should submit their papers for review in a ACM two-column conference format. Suitable LaTeX, Word, and Overleaf templates for SIGIR are available from the ACM Website (use sigconf proceedings template for LaTeX and the Interim Template for Word).

The paper should be no more than 5 pages in length (including all figures and references) and one page for appendix. The first page must contain the title of the paper, full author name, affiliation, and contact details, an abstract of up to 250 words, ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) categories, and up to 3 keywords describing the topic areas. Information about categories and keywords can be found on ACM Web pages on the computing classification system.

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that their submissions use no unusual format features and are printable on a standard printer. Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide “alt text” (alternative text) for floats (images, tables, etc.) in their content so that readers with disabilities can be given descriptive information for these floats that are important to the work. The descriptive text will be displayed in place of a float if the float cannot be loaded. This benefits the author as well as it broadens the reader base for the author's work. Moreover, the alt text provides in-depth float descriptions to search engine crawlers, which helps to properly index these floats. Additionally, authors should follow the ACM Accessibility Recommendations for Publishing in Color and SIG ACCESS guidelines on describing figures.

Doctoral Consortium submissions should be submitted in PDF through the EasyChair system selecting the “SIGIR 2025 Doctoral Consortium” track:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sigir2025.

Review Process and Selection Criteria

Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. Submissions should contain no information or materials that are proprietary at publication time.

Doctoral student papers will be evaluated by the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee based on:

• Originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques (provide relevant citations).
• Importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues in information retrieval (clearly identify the problems you are trying to solve).
• Rigor and validity of claims, argumentation, methodology, results, and interpretations.
• Clarity and persuasiveness of expression.

To provide maximum feedback to each student, participation in the Consortium is limited. Selection is based on three broad criteria:

• The degree to which the applicant is positioned to benefit from participation, including the student's position in the doctoral process (the greatest benefit is for students with a developed research idea but much of the work yet undone).
• The degree to which the student may otherwise lack access to a diverse set of feedback and input on their research plans (e.g., availability of local experts and advisors).
• Diversity of participation, including diversity by institution, country, research topic and approach, and demographics. In general, we might limit participation to one or two students per institution, depending on the number of applicants.

In-Person Attendance Policy

SIGIR 2025 is an in-person conference. Despite the challenges it may pose, we believe that an in-person conference is more beneficial in terms of direct engagement and networking opportunities, more dynamic exchange of research ideas, and welcoming and nurturing newcomers.

All accepted papers (including all tracks) to the main conference and workshops are expected to be presented in-person. We anticipate that at least one author from each accepted paper will attend the conference in person to deliver the paper and address audience questions during the Q&A session. No pre-recorded videos will be accepted. More information at the SIGIR 2025 In-presence Policy page.

Child Care Service

SIGIR 2025 promotes inclusion and attendance also by organizing a child care service, in order to foster work-family balance by offering congress attendees the opportunity to attend events with their children.

Children from 0 to 12 years of age are welcomed in a specially set up room inside Padua Congress Center throughout the duration of the congress. A colorful, “warm”, safe and welcoming environment, in the same structure that hosts the congresses, a protected place where parents can leave their children, but at the same time stay in touch with them during the breaks of the different sessions.

The nursery space dedicated to the 0-3 age group, equipped with a changing table and other facilities dedicated to the little ones, is next to the kids’ area for children over 3 years old and a cinema room for screenings.

The activities are run by a company specialized in education services with expert staff, appointed by Padua Congress Center, and include thematic workshops - from painting to creative activities - as well as playtime also in the open air, in the facility's outdoor spaces. Children are also offered lunch.

The service is available - for a fee (depending on sponsors) - to all SIGIR 2025 attendees who request it. For more information and updates, check out the SIGIR 2025 Child Care page.

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

Michael Bendersky,  Google DeepMind, USA

Behrooz Mansouri,  University of Southern Maine, USA

Isabelle Moulinier,  Independent, USA