Deadline: 2/19/2026
ICFP 2026 Call for Papers
=====================
Accepted papers to be invited for presentation at:
**The 31st ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming**
August 23-29, 2026
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
https://icfp26.sigplan.org
Submission Information
* Submission web site: https://icfp26.hotcrp.com
* Submission Deadline: 19 Feb 2026 (AoE)
Double-blind review
* Reviews: 20 Apr 2026 (AoE)
* Author Response: 20 Apr 2026 - 23 Apr 2026 (AoE)
* Notification of Conditional Acceptance: 14 May 2026 (AoE)
* Revision: 3 Jun 2026 (AoE)
* Final Notification: 10 Jun 2026 (AoE)
* Camera Ready: 1 Jul 2026 (AoE)
Call for Papers
=============
PACMPL issue ICFP 2026 seeks original papers on the art and science of
functional programming. Submissions are invited on all topics from
principles to practice, from foundations to features, and from
abstraction to application. The scope includes all languages that
encourage functional programming, including both purely applicative
and imperative languages, as well as languages with objects,
concurrency, or parallelism. Topics of interest include (but are not
limited to):
* Language Design: concurrency, parallelism, and distribution;
modularity; components and composition; meta-programming; macros;
pattern matching; type systems; type inference; dependent types;
effect types; gradual types; refinement types; session types;
interoperability; domain-specific languages; imperative
programming; object-oriented programming; logic programming;
probabilistic programming; reactive programming; generic
programming; bidirectional programming; secure programming.
* Implementation: abstract machines; virtual machines;
interpretation; compilation; compile-time and run-time
optimisation; garbage collection and memory management; runtime
systems; multi-threading; exploiting parallel hardware; interfaces
to foreign functions, services, components, or low-level machine
resources.
* Software-Development Techniques: algorithms and data structures;
design patterns; specification; verification; validation; proof
assistants; debugging; testing; tracing; profiling; build
systems; program synthesis.
* Analysis and Transformation: control flow; data flow; abstract
interpretation; partial evaluation; program calculation.
* Foundations: formal semantics; lambda calculus; program
equivalence; rewriting; type theory; logic; category theory;
computational effects; continuations; control; state; names and
binding; program verification.
* Applications: symbolic computing; formal-methods tools; systems
programming; distributed systems and web programming; hardware
design; databases; scientific and numerical computing; graphical
user interfaces; graphics and multimedia; GPU programming;
scripting; system administration; security.
* Education: teaching introductory programming; mathematical proof;
algebra.
Submissions will be evaluated according to their relevance,
correctness, significance, originality, and clarity. Each submission
should explain its contributions in both general and technical terms,
clearly identifying what has been accomplished, explaining why it is
significant, and comparing it with previous work. The technical
content should be accessible to a broad audience.
PACMPL issue ICFP 2026 also welcomes submissions in two separate
categories — Functional Pearls and Experience Reports — that must be
marked as such when submitted and that *need not* report original
research results. Detailed guidelines on both categories are given at
the end of this call.
In an effort to achieve a balanced, diverse program, each author may
be listed as a (co)author on a maximum of four submissions. Authors
who require financial support to attend the conference can apply for
PAC funding (http://www.sigplan.org/PAC/).
The General Chair and PC Chair may not submit papers. PC members
(other than the PC Chair) may submit papers.
Please contact the Program Chair if you have questions or are
concerned about the appropriateness of a topic.
Double-blind Submissions
-----------------------
ICFP 2026 will use a full double-blind reviewing process. This means
that identities of authors will not be made visible to reviewers until
after conditional-acceptance decisions have been made, and then only
for the conditionally-accepted papers. The use of full double-blind
reviewing has several consequences for authors.
* Submissions: Authors must omit their names and institutions from
their paper submissions. In addition, references to authors' own
prior work should be in the third person (e.g., not "We build on our
previous work ..." but rather "We build on the work of ...").
* Supplementary material: Authors must fully anonymize any
supplementary material (see below). Links to supplementary
material on external websites are not permitted.
* Author response: In responding to reviews, authors should not say
anything that reveals their identity, since author identities will
not be revealed to reviewers at that stage of the reviewing
process.
* Dissemination of work under submission: Authors are welcome to
disseminate their ideas and post draft versions of their paper(s)
on their personal website, institutional repository, or arXiv
(reviewers will be asked to turn off arXiv notifications during
the review period). But authors should not take steps that would
almost certainly reveal their identities to members of the Program
Committee, e.g., directly contacting PC members or publicizing the
work on widely-visible social media or major mailing lists used by
the community.
The purpose of the above restrictions is to help the Program Committee
come to a judgment about the paper without bias, not to make it
impossible for them to discover the authors' identities if they were
to try. In particular, nothing should be done in the name of anonymity
that weakens the quality of the submission. However, there are
occasionally cases where adhering to the above restrictions is truly
difficult or impossible for one reason or another. In such cases, the
authors should contact the Program Chair to discuss the situation and
how to handle it. The FAQ on Double-Blind Reviewing
(https://popl24.sigplan.org/track/POPL-2024-popl-research-papers#FAQ-on-Double-Blind-Reviewing)
addresses many common scenarios and answers many common questions
about this topic. But there remain many grey areas and trade-offs. If
you have any doubts about how to interpret the double-blind rules or
you encounter a complex case that is not clearly covered by the FAQ,
please contact the Program Chair for guidance.
Preparation of submissions
--------------------------
The deadline for submissions is: ** Thursay, 19 Feb 2026 AoE **
(https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe). This deadline will be strictly
enforced.
* Formatting: Submissions must be in PDF format, printable in black
and white on US Letter sized paper and interpretable by common PDF
tools. All submissions must adhere to the "ACM Small" template that is
available (in both LaTeX and Word formats) from
https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions.
Please download the latest version of the ACM style from
https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions, since the
citation format has recently been changed.
See also PACMPL's Information and Guidelines for Authors at
https://pacmpl.acm.org/authors.cfm.
There is a limit of *25 pages* for a full paper or Functional Pearl
and *12 pages* for an Experience Report; in either case, the
bibliography and an optional clearly marked appendix will not be
counted against these limits. Submissions that exceed the page limits
or, for other reasons, do not meet the requirements for formatting,
will be desk rejected.
* Submission: Submissions will be accepted at https://icfp26.hotcrp.com
Improved versions of a paper may be submitted at any point before the
submission deadline using the same web interface.
* Author Response Period: Authors will have a 96-hour period,
starting at 00:00 (midnight) AoE on Monday, 20 April, 2026, to
read reviews and respond to them.
* Appendix and Supplementary Material: Authors have the option to
include a clearly marked appendix and/or to attach supplementary
material to a submission, on the understanding that reviewers may
choose not to look at such an appendix or supplementary
material. Supplementary material may be uploaded as a separate PDF
document or tarball. Any supplementary material must be uploaded
at submission time, not by providing a URL in the paper that
points to an external repository. All supplementary material must
be anonymised.
* Authorship Policies: All submissions are expected to comply with
the ACM Policies for Authorship that are detailed at
https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/information-for-authors.
* Republication Policies: Each submission must adhere to SIGPLAN’s
republication policy, as explained on the web at
http://www.sigplan.org/Resources/Policies/Republication.
Review Process
--------------
This section outlines the two-stage process with double-blind
reviewing that will be used to select papers for PACMPL issue
ICFP 2026. Like last year, ICFP 2026 will adapt a full double-blind
reviewing process. More information see below.
ICFP 2026 will have two Associate Chairs who will help the PC Chair
monitor reviews, solicit external expert reviews for submissions when
there is not enough expertise on the committee, and facilitate
reviewer discussions.
ICFP 2026 will employ a two-stage review process. The first stage in
the review process will assess submitted papers using the criteria
stated above and will allow for feedback and input on initial reviews
through the author response period mentioned previously. As a result
of the review process, a set of papers will be conditionally accepted
and all other papers will be rejected. Authors will be notified of
these decisions on 14 May, 2026.
Authors of conditionally accepted papers will be provided with
committee reviews along with a set of optional or mandatory
revisions. By 3 June, 2026, the authors should provide a
revised submission. The second and final reviewing phase assesses
whether the mandatory revisions have been adequately addressed by the
authors and thereby determines the final accept/reject status of the
paper. The intent and expectation is that the mandatory revisions can
feasibly be addressed within a couple of weeks.
The second submission should clearly identify how the mandatory
revisions were addressed. To that end, the second submission *must be
accompanied by a cover letter* mapping each mandatory revision request
to specific parts of the paper. The cover letter will facilitate a
quick second review, allowing for confirmation of final acceptance
within two weeks. Conversely, the absence of a cover letter will be
grounds for the paper's rejection.
Information for Authors of Accepted Papers
------------------------------------------
As a condition of acceptance, final versions of all papers must adhere
to the ACM Small format. The page limit for the final versions of
papers will be *increased by two pages* to help authors respond to
reviewer comments and mandatory revisions: 27 pages plus bibliography
for a regular paper or Functional Pearl, 14 pages plus bibliography
for an Experience Report.
Authors of accepted submissions will be required to agree to one of
the three ACM licensing options, one of which is Creative Commons
CC-BY publication; this is the option recommended by the PACMPL
editorial board. A reasoned argument in favour of this option can be
found in the article Why CC-BY? published by OASPA, the Open Access
Scholarly Publishers Association. The other options are copyright
transfer to ACM or retaining copyright but granting ACM exclusive
publication rights.
PACMPL is a Gold Open Access journal, and authors are encouraged to
publish their work under a CC-BY license. Gold Open Access guarantees
permanent free online access to the definitive version in the ACM
Digital Library, and the recommended CC-BY option also allows anyone
to copy and distribute the work with attribution. Gold Open Access has
been made possible by generous funding through ACM SIGPLAN, which will
cover all open access costs in the event authors cannot. Authors who
can cover the costs may do so by paying an Article Processing Charge
(APC). PACMPL, SIGPLAN, and ACM Headquarters are committed to
exploring routes to making Gold Open Access publication both
affordable and sustainable.
ACM Author-Izer is a unique service that enables ACM authors to
generate and post links on either their home page or institutional
repository for visitors to download the definitive version of their
articles from the ACM Digital Library at no charge. Downloads through
Author-Izer links are captured in official ACM statistics, improving
the accuracy of usage and impact measurements. Consistently linking to
the definitive version of an ACM article should reduce user confusion
over article versioning. After an article has been published and
assigned to the appropriate ACM Author Profile pages, authors should
visit http://www.acm.org/publications/acm-author-izer-service to learn
how to create links for free downloads from the ACM DL.
The official publication date is the date the journal is made
available in the ACM Digital Library. The journal issue and associated
papers will be published no earlier than 1 August, 2026. The official
publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related
to published work.
Authors of each accepted submission are invited to attend and be
available for the presentation of that paper at the conference. The
schedule for presentations will be determined and shared with authors
after the full program has been selected.
ORCID: ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier (an ORCID iD)
that you own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other
researcher: https://orcid.org/. ACM now require an ORCID iD for every
author of a paper, not just the corresponding author. So, the author
who is filling out the permission form should make sure they have the
ORCID iDs for all of their coauthors before filling out the form. Any
authors who do not yet have an ORCID iD can go to
https://orcid.org/register to have one assigned.
By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby
acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM
Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on
Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations
of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by
ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to
other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.
Artifact Evaluation
-------------------
Authors of papers that are conditionally accepted in the first phase
of the review process will be encouraged (but not required) to submit
supporting materials for Artifact Evaluation. These items will then be
reviewed by an Artifact Evaluation Committee, separate from the paper
Review Committee, whose task is to assess how the artifacts support
the work described in the associated paper. Papers that go through the
Artifact Evaluation process successfully will receive a seal of
approval printed on the papers themselves. Authors of accepted papers
will be encouraged to make the supporting materials publicly available
upon publication of the papers, for example, by including them as
"source materials" in the ACM Digital Library. An additional seal will
mark papers whose artifacts are made available, as outlined in the ACM
guidelines for artifact badging.
Participation in Artifact Evaluation is voluntary and *will not
influence* the final decision regarding paper acceptance.
Special categories of papers
----------------------------
In addition to research papers, PACMPL issue ICFP solicits two kinds
of papers that do not require original research contributions:
Functional Pearls, which are full papers, and Experience Reports,
which are limited to half the length of a full paper. Authors
submitting such papers should consider the following guidelines.
#### Functional Pearls
A Functional Pearl is an elegant essay about something related to
functional programming. Examples include, but are not limited to:
* a new and thought-provoking way of looking at an old idea;
* an instructive example of program calculation or proof;
* a nifty presentation of an old or new data structure;
* an interesting application of functional programming techniques;
* a novel use or exposition of functional programming in the classroom.
While pearls often demonstrate an idea through the development of a
short program, there is no requirement or expectation that they do
so. Thus, they encompass the notions of theoretical and educational
pearls.
Functional Pearls are valued as highly and judged as rigorously as
ordinary papers, but using somewhat different criteria. In particular,
a pearl is not required to report original research, but, it should be
concise, instructive, and entertaining. A pearl is likely to be
rejected if its readers get bored, if the material gets too
complicated, if too much-specialised knowledge is needed, or if the
writing is inelegant. The key to writing a good pearl is polishing.
A submission that is intended to be treated as a pearl must be marked
as such on the submission web page and should contain the words
"Functional Pearl" somewhere in its title or subtitle. These steps
will alert reviewers to use the appropriate evaluation
criteria. Pearls will be combined with ordinary papers for
the purpose of computing the conference's acceptance rate.
#### Experience Reports
The purpose of an Experience Report is to describe the experience of
using functional programming in practice, whether in industrial
application, tool development, programming education, or any other
area.
Possible topics for an Experience Report include, but are not limited
to:
* insights gained from real-world projects using functional programming;
* comparison of functional programming with conventional programming in
the context of an industrial project or a university curriculum
project-management, business, or legal issues encountered when using
functional programming in a real-world project;
* curricular issues encountered when using functional programming in
education;
* real-world constraints that created special challenges for an
implementation of a functional language or for functional programming
in general.
An Experience Report is distinguished from a normal PACMPL issue ICFP
paper by its title, by its length, and by the criteria used to
evaluate it.
Both in the papers and in any citations, the title of each accepted
Experience Report must end with the words “(Experience Report)” in
parentheses. The acceptance rate for Experience Reports will be
computed and reported separately from the rate for ordinary papers.
Experience Report submissions can be at most 12 pages long, excluding
bibliography.
Each accepted Experience Report will be presented at the conference,
but depending on the number of Experience Reports and regular papers
accepted, authors of Experience Reports may be asked to give shorter
talks.
Because the purpose of Experience Reports is to enable our community
to understand the application of functional programming, an acceptable
Experience Report need not add to the body of knowledge of the
functional-programming community by presenting novel results or
conclusions. It is sufficient if the report describes an illuminating
experience with functional programming, or provides evidence for a
clear thesis about the use of functional programming. The experience
or thesis must be relevant to ICFP, but it need not be novel.
The review committee will accept or reject Experience Reports based on
whether they judge the paper to illuminate some aspect of the use of
functional programming. Anecdotal evidence will be acceptable provided
it is well-argued and the author explains what efforts were made to
gather as much evidence as possible. Typically, papers that show how
functional programming was used are more convincing than papers that
say only that functional programming was used. It can be especially
effective to present comparisons of the situations before and after
the experience described in the paper, but other kinds of evidence
would also make sense, depending on context. Experience drawn from a
single person's experience may be sufficient, but more weight will be
given to evidence drawn from the experience of groups of people.
An Experience Report should be short and to the point. For an
industrial project, it should make a claim about how well functional
programming worked and why; for a pedagogy paper, it might make a
claim about the suitability of a particular teaching style or
educational exercise. Either way, it should produce evidence to
substantiate the claim. If functional programming worked in this case
in the same ways it has worked for others, the paper need only
summarise the results — the main part of the paper should discuss how
well it worked and in what context. Most readers will not want to know
all the details of the experience and its implementation, but the
paper should characterise it and its context well enough so that
readers can judge to what degree this experience is relevant to their
own circumstances. The paper should take care to highlight any unusual
aspects; specifics about the experience are more valuable than
generalities about functional programming.
If the paper not only describes experience but also presents new
technical results, or if the experience refutes cherished beliefs of
the functional-programming community, it may be better to submit it as
a full paper, which will be judged by the usual criteria of novelty,
originality, and relevance. The Program Chair will be happy to advise
on any concerns about which category to submit to.
About PACMPL
------------
Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages (PACMPL
https://pacmpl.acm.org/) is a Gold Open Access journal publishing
research on all aspects of programming languages, from design to
implementation and from mathematical formalisms to empirical
studies. Each issue of the journal is devoted to a particular subject
area within programming languages and will be announced through
publicised Calls for Papers, like this one.
Important update on ACMs new open access publishing model for 2026 ACM Conferences
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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|-------------------------------------------|------------------------|--------------------------------|
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