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ICML 2026 Conflict of Interest Definitions

This document defines what constitutes a conflict of interest for the ICML 2026 review process. (It is based on the document for NeurIPS 2024.) Please read this document carefully.

Anyone who plans to submit a paper as an author or a co-author will need to create or update their OpenReview profile. You will be asked to declare two types of conflicts—domain conflicts and personal conflicts. Both types are declared by filling out appropriate sections of your OpenReview profile, as described below.

Domain conflicts (entered in Career & Education History)

Please ensure that this section accurately represents your domain conflicts for (at least) the last three years. For current or recent collaborations, including internships, you should generally use personal conflicts (recorded in the Advisors & Other Relations section). Please use domain conflicts judiciously, reserving them for cases when you have a genuine conflict of interest with the institution. Your Career & Education History is public on your OpenReview profile.

When you enter a domain conflict, none of your submissions will be visible to reviewers, area chairs, or senior area chairs who have also entered this domain conflict. Only the last three years of your and their Career & Education History will be used.

Conflicts with individual authors and program committee members (entered in Advisors & Other Relations)

The following constitutes a personal conflict:

  • Family or close personal relationship
  • Ph.D. advisee/advisor relationship
  • Current, frequent, or recent collaboration (where recent means within the past three years). However, you do not need to enter co-authors of your publications that appear in your OpenReview profile.

In some cases, you may have a personal conflict that is not covered by the definition above, but would nonetheless significantly compromise the fairness of the review process. You may choose to limit visibility of such a conflict in your OpenReview profile by changing its visibility from "everyone" (the default) to "ICML.cc/2026/{Conference,Position_Paper_Track}/Program_Chairs". If program chairs have any reason to doubt the validity of such a conflict, they may ask the integrity chair to confidentially inquire into its nature.

Please note that OpenReview profiles are persistent across conferences, but other conferences may have a different conflict resolution policy. Any attempt to impact reviewer assignment via false declaration of conflicts may result in rejection of all submitted papers without review.

If you have any questions about special circumstances not discussed above, please contact program chairs at program-chairs@icml.cc.