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 run as an in-person conference from July 13th to 18th, 2025 in Padua, Italy.

The SIGIR 2025 Short Paper Track invites submissions of high-quality research that address challenges and advancements in Information Retrieval (IR). Short papers are an opportunity to share relevant research findings, propose and evaluate methodologies, and present new tasks or applications in a concise format. The track focuses on solid research work. The track will also favorably encourage submissions of preliminary but empirically validated ideas. Short papers also provide an opportunity to describe research that is best communicated in an interactive or graphical format.

Compared to full papers, their contribution may be narrower in scope or be applied to a narrower set of application domains. This track aims to provide an inclusive platform for the IR community to exchange diverse ideas and insights, facilitating discussions that drive innovation.

We encourage submissions to the short paper track as a way to foster broader engagement with the community and provide an opportunity for constructive feedback, particularly for students. While we welcome early-stage work, we recommend that submissions demonstrate a clear and thoughtful foundation to maximize the benefit of the review process.

Important Dates for Short Papers

• Abstract submission: February 4, 2025
• Short paper submission: February 18, 2025
  
  
  Due to other community events, there are 2 weeks between the abstract and paper submission!
• Short paper notifications: April 4, 2025

All dates are specified in the Anywhere on Earth (AoE) timezone.

Please be aware that the PC Chairs will desk-reject submissions that lack informative titles and abstracts ("placeholder abstracts") immediately following the abstract deadline.

Topics of Interest

Short paper submissions are expected to be related to the wider Information Retrieval field. Please see the Call for Full Papers for a comprehensive list of relevant areas.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions to the SIGIR 2025 Short Paper Track must adhere to specific guidelines to ensure a fair and consistent review process. All submissions must present original and unpublished work, meaning the research should not have been previously published or concurrently submitted to another venue. Authors are required to prepare their submissions in an anonymous format to facilitate the double-blind review process, ensuring that the identities of both authors and reviewers remain concealed.

See this brief checklist to strengthen an IR paper, for authors and reviewers.

Submissions of short research papers must be in English, in PDF format, and be at most 4 pages in length (including figures, tables, proofs, appendixes, acknowledgments, and any content except references), with unrestricted space for references, in the current ACM two-column conference format. Suitable LaTeX, Word, and Overleaf templates are available from the ACM Website (use sigconf proceedings template for LaTeX and the Interim Template for Word). ACM’s CCS concepts and keywords are required for review.

For LaTeX, the following should be used:

documentclass[sigconf,natbib=true,anonymous=true]{acmart}

Submissions must be anonymous and should be submitted electronically via EasyChair by selecting the “SIGIR 2025 Short Papers” track:

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

At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for SIGIR 2025, and the author(s) or their delegate(s) must present the work at the conference in person.

Anonymity and Pre-Print/ArXiv Policy

The short paper review process is double-blind. Authors are required to take all reasonable steps to preserve the anonymity of their submission. The submission must not include author information; citations or discussion of your own prior work should be written up in third person form. It is acceptable to refer to companies or organizations that provided datasets, hosted experiments or deployed solutions if reviewers cannot infer that the authors are currently affiliated with these organizations. You can submit, to SIGIR 2025, papers that you have posted to pre-print/archival platforms (e.g. arXiv), or plan to post in the future, after submission. However, your paper must conform to the SIGIR 2025 Pre-Print/ArXiv Policy. Breaking anonymity or pre-print/ArXiv policy puts the submission at risk of being desk rejected.

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.

Authorship Policy

Authors should carefully go through ACM’s authorship policy before submitting a paper. Please ensure that all authors are clearly identified in EasyChair before the submission deadline. To support the identification of reviewers with conflicts of interest, the full author list must be specified at abstract submission time. No changes to authorship, under any circumstances, will be permitted after the abstract submission deadline or for the camera-ready submission. So please, make sure you have listed authors correctly at abstract submission time.

Use of AI

All submissions must comply with the ACM policy on the use of Artificial Intelligence.

Desk Rejection Policy

Submissions that violate the anonymity, pre-print policy, length, or formatting requirements, or are determined to violate ACM’s policies on academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, author misrepresentation, falsification, etc., are subject to desk rejection by the chairs. Any of the following may result in desk rejection:

• Figures, tables, proofs, appendixes, acknowledgements, or any other content after page 4 of the submission.
• Formatting not in line with the guidelines provided above.
• Authors or authors’ institutional affiliations clearly named or easily discoverable.
• Links to source code repositories that reveal author identities, or links to extended versions of the current paper. It is recommended to hold these for the final published version and submit source code for artifact review. If you need to share anonymous code, you may use anonymous git repositories, such as https://anonymous.4open.science/.
• Change of authors after the abstract submission deadline.
• Content that has been determined to have been copied from other sources.
• Any form of academic fraud or dishonesty.
• Lack of topical fit for SIGIR.

Short Paper Chairs

Ebrahim Bagheri,  Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

Faegheh Hasibi,  Radboud University, The Netherlands

Joel Mackenzie,  The University of Queensland , Australia