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ICML 2026 Peer Review FAQ

This page addresses some frequently asked questions we have received regarding the peer review process for ICML 2026. Due to the high volume of emails we receive, we may not be able to respond to inquiries, especially to those that are already addressed on this page.

 

Email communications

Q: From whom should I expect emails about the ICML peer reviewing process?

A: Emails via OpenReview will come from noreply@openreview.net and icml2026-notifications@openreview.net. Please make sure those emails are able to make it past any email/spam filters.

Q: I have a question not answered on this page: [...]?

A: The (general) ICML FAQ page answers a number of questions about icml.cc accounts, conference logistics, payment, registration, travel documents, etc. If you still cannot find the answer to your question, please use the following form to direct your question to the most appropriate organizer: https://icml.cc/Help/Contact. We will try our best to get back to you or update this page with an answer as soon as possible.

 

Reciprocal reviewing, reviewer registration, and bidding

Q: I have withdrawn my paper(s) and/or submitted a reciprocal reviewer correction, but I'm still getting reviewing emails. Do I still need to review? (Can you remove me from emails?)

A: You MUST review if any of the following apply:

  • You are listed on any full submission (at the full submission deadline) as a reciprocal reviewer AND you selected "This submission is NOT exempt from the Reciprocal Reviewing requirement" AND you have not submitted a Reciprocal Reviewing Correction form with a different reciprocal reviewer.
  • You are listed on any full submission (at the full submission deadline) as a reciprocal reviewer submitted via the Reciprocal Reviewing Correction form.
  • You will be an author on at least 4 full submissions (at the full submission deadline) and you have not filed the Per-author Reciprocal Reviewing Exemption form (this form is ONLY for authors with 4 or more papers).

You DON'T need to review if any of the following apply:

  • All the papers that list you as a reciprocal reviewer have been or will be withdrawn (deleted) or desk rejected by the full submission deadline AND you will not be an author on 4 or more full submissions.
  • You will have less than 4 submissions (at the full submission deadline), and although you were originally listed as a reciprocal reviewer on some of them, the papers on which you were listed submitted the Reciprocal Reviewing Correction form with other reviewers or with exemptions.
  • You will have 4 or more full submissions (at the full submission deadline), but you have filled out the Per-author Reciprocal Reviewing Exemption.

Update (2/1/2026): If you find that you don't need to review, but you have filled out the registration form, we assume that you are interested in reviewing (even if you're no longer required to do so); reach out to program-chairs@icml.cc if this is not the case. Even if you don't fill out the registration form, you may still receive some reviewing reminders until January 30 February 3 (at that point we will have complete information to do the reviewer removals). Please disregard those emails.

Q: Do I need to fill out Reviewer Registration form?

A: If you would like to be a reviewer for ICML or you are required to be a reviewer according to the criteria in the previous question then you MUST fill out the Reviewer Registration form by Thursday Jan 29th AOE (that is 24 hours after the full submission deadline). You can access the form by selecting the “Registration” task at https://openreview.net/group?id=ICML.cc/2026/Conference/Reviewers#reviewer-tasks.

Q: The reciprocal reviewer we declared on our submission is not qualified. How do we update the reciprocal reviewer information?

A: At this point we are done with revisions of reciprocal reviewers. Please make sure that your reciprocal reviewer fills out the Reviewer Registration form. This will allow us to filter out those who are not qualified. We will reach out if we need additional qualified reviewers. Good-faith nominations, even if they do not meet the qualification criteria, won’t be penalized.

Q: The reciprocal reviewer we declared on our submission happens to be AC (which we didn't know at the time of submitting the nomination), and the correction form has been closed, what should we do?

A: Good-faith nominations like this won't be penalized. No action is needed from you. The AC will remain in the AC pool and won't be required to serve as a reviewer. 

Q: I have submitted the Reciprocal Reviewing Correction form, but the originally submitted information still appears. Should I do anything?

A: This is expected behavior. As long as you see appropriate "correction" fields, we will assume that those override the original values.

Q: I do not meet reviewer qualifications, should I still bid on papers?

A (updated 2/1/2026): If you know you are not required to review and you are not planning to fill out the Reviewer Registration form, please don't bid. If you have already filled out the Reviewer Registration form, you could wait until January 30. On January 30, we will review which reviewers meet the qualification criteria and notify those that are being removed from the reviewer pool. If you are required to review, please make sure to fill out the registration form and place the bids. Program chairs may broaden the original reviewer criteria, so you might still be required to review (you will be told by February 3). If you are not required to review, but you have already filled out the registration form, please notify program-chairs@icml.cc that you do not wish to review (in this case you don't need to bid).

Q: I am in the process of bidding. The papers in this list are really out of my domain, with low affinity scores.

A: It's likely that you are added as a correction to an earlier reciprocal reviewer on a paper, which happened after we had computed the reviewer-paper affinity scores. These scores will be recomputed after the full paper deadline has now passed, and your bidding set will be more meaningful once we are able to deploy the final affinities. Please make sure to update your expertise by the full paper deadline and include only relevant papers.

 

Being an area chair or reviewer

Q: What are the qualifications to be an area chair for ICML?

A: ACs (a.k.a. meta-reviewers) must have seniority at least at the level of a junior faculty member in an academic institution (e.g., an assistant professor) or an industry equivalent. They must have substantial prior experience with reviewing for peer-reviewed conferences or journals. They must also have expertise and/or broad knowledge in multiple major sub-areas of machine learning.

The seniority and reviewing experience ensure that the AC is able to oversee and ensure the quality of work of several reviewers and provide feedback/guidance to reviewers where necessary. The expertise and broad knowledge ensure that the AC is able to judge the contributions and importance of the submissions relative to prior works and ultimately make recommendations about acceptance/rejection.

Q: I would like to volunteer to be an area chair for ICML 2026. How can I do this?

A: We have completed our initial round of area chair selection. You may still fill out the ICML 2026 AC nomination form, but we will only consider new nominations in case we need to recruit additional area chairs. All the nominations will be provided to ICML 2027 program chairs. We are no longer accepting (self-)nominations for ACs. 

Q: As an AC, how do I communicate with authors?

A: You can use the “Author AC Confidential Comments” button.

Q: What are the qualifications to be a reviewer for ICML?

A: Reviewers must have research experience equivalent to a second-year graduate student in machine learning or a related field. They must have been a primary author* on at least two peer-reviewed conference or journal papers published in a related venue (e.g., ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, UAI, AISTATS, COLT, ALT, JMLR, TMLR, CVPR, ICCV, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, SIMODS – note that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list). We strongly encourage each first-time reviewer to identify a ‘mentor’ (such as a research advisor or manager) who has both the necessary qualifications for and prior experience with reviewing, and who has agreed to oversee and assist the reviewer in their reviewing tasks.

The research experience ensures the reviewer is to be able to competently evaluate a submission’s methodology, interpret findings and results, and to evaluate contributions in the context of prior works. Prior authorship ensures that the reviewer understands the peer review process (at least from the side of the authors) and the standards and conventions of composing reviews and corresponding with authors.

*We leave it to your own discretion to interpret what is meant by "primary author", as this may vary between sub-areas of machine learning.

Q: What is the reviewing load for reviewers? Can I get a reduced reviewing load?

A: We are aiming for a load of around 5-6 submissions per reviewer. Unfortunately we are not allowing for reduced load reviewing this year.

Q: I would like to volunteer to be a reviewer for ICML 2026. How can I do this?

A: Please fill out the ICML 2026 reviewer nomination form. You will need to provide your OpenReview profile as part of this form submission.  We are no longer accepting (self-)nominations for reviewers.

 

Concurrent ICML submissions

Q: I have multiple ICML submissions. Which of them should cite each other following ICML's dual and concurrent submission policy?

A: You should cite and discuss all of your concurrent submissions that a reasonable reader/reviewer might expect to see in a related work section. For example, if one of your ICML submissions builds on the idea of another submission then it must be cited. As another example, if a reader saw the two papers side by side (title, abstract, and only skimmed through the sections) would they wonder how the two papers differ, what one adds on top of the other, how substantial is the contribution of one over the other, etc.? If the answer is yes, then the two papers should cross-cite and discuss each other.

Q: How should the concurrent ICML submissions cite each other?

A: Anonymized PDFs of all the cited concurrent submissions must be provided in the supplementary material. For the citation format, you could consider something like this:

@misc{ConcurrentWork1,
  title        = "<Real Paper Title>",
  author       = "Anonymous Authors",
  howpublished = "Concurrent Submission to ICML",
  year         = 2026,
  note         = "Filename: <filename in supplement>"
}

Q: If a paper gets accepted, does ICML publish all of the original supplementary material including the anonymized concurrent submissions?

As a default, we are planning to publish all of the originally submitted supplementary material for all the accepted papers. However, we will create a process where the authors will be able to request exceptions for their concurrent submissions (for example, for cases when the referenced work is rejected and is not something that the accepted work directly builds on).

 

Submitting a paper

Q: Some of the paper authors don't have an active OpenReview account and it's less than two weeks before the deadline. Can I still submit?

A: All authors must have (active or inactive) OpenReview accounts by the abstract deadline. The account of the submitting author must be active by the abstract deadline and the accounts of other authors by the submission deadline. While we recommend to create new accounts at least two weeks before the conference deadline, OpenReview has been able to validate new accounts in a shorter time interval (they process the incoming requests in FIFO manner). Please don't reach out to program chairs to expedite this process.

Q: I missed the abstract (or full paper) submission deadline because of <insert very good reason>, can I get an extension?

A: Sorry, these deadlines are strict with no exception.

Q: I have a paper under submission to another conference. Is it okay under the Dual Submission Policy to also submit it to ICML 2026?

A: In order to comply with the ICML Dual Submission Policy, you must ensure that a paper of yours accepted or under review at another conference is not under submission to ICML 2026 by the full paper submission deadline. Note that the ICML 2026 full paper submission deadline is after the notification dates for both AISTATS 2026 and ICLR 2026, so you should be able to remove any potential dual submission from OpenReview in time.

Q: Is it possible to only submit an abstract, or to only submit a poster without a full paper?

A: No. We are only taking submissions for full (research) papers and position papers.

Q: Is it possible to submit a full paper without an abstract submission?

A: No. An abstract must first be submitted by the Abstract submission deadline on OpenReview. After submitting the abstract, it will be possible to modify the submission to also upload the full paper PDF, which must be uploaded by the Full paper submission deadline. See the Call For Papers for further details (e.g., what intervening modifications are allowed).

Q: Is it possible to present a paper virtually or in hybrid-mode?

A: The conference is planned to be an in-person event, with no support for virtual or hybrid presentation. However, authors of accepted papers are not required to attend the conference. In that case, their paper will still appear in the proceedings. For proceedings-only papers, at least one of the authors must obtain virtual registration. See the Call For Papers for further details.

Q: Which license should I choose?

A: Please see the OpenReview legal terms. (The arXiv license information page has related advice.)

Q: Can I modify the ICML LaTeX template (e.g., by commenting-out <insert LaTeX code here, like \printAffiliationsAndNotice>) so that I have more space for something else?

A: Modifying the template to gain an unfair "space" advantage relative to other authors is not allowed.

Q: Can I upload my paper to arXiv, either before the submission or when the paper is under review?

A: Yes authors are allowed to post versions of their work on preprint servers such as arXiv.

 

Conflict of Interest (COI)

Q: How do I update Conflict of Interest (COI) information in OpenReview?

A: Sign into your OpenReview account, go to your profile page, and switch to edit mode by clicking "Edit Profile" near the top. You should arrive at a page titled "Edit Profile", and you can switch between the various sections by clicking the numbers near the top of the page (corresponding to Names, Personal Info, Emails, Personal Links, History, Relations, and Expertise). Of particular relevance are Emails, History, and Relations. See https://icml.cc/Conferences/2026/ConflictOfInterestDefinitions for what is considered a COI for ICML 2026. Please also make sure the "Emails" part of your profile lists your institutional email addresses (e.g., from your university, lab, or workplace).

Q: I have a lot of co-authors, and it will take too much effort to enter them all as "relations" in my OpenReview profile. Is there anything I can do to reduce this effort?

A: Co-authors of your publications that appear in your OpenReview profile do not need to be explicitly entered as "Relations" in your profile. (OpenReview allows you to quickly import publications listed in your DBLP page; this can be accessed from the "Personal Links" section when you edit your profile.)

 

Double-blind reviewing

Q: I want to include a link to my code/data in my submission, but it includes information (e.g., a github username) that could reveal my identity. Does this violate the double-blind review policy?

A: Yes, this would violate the double-blind review policy. If you include a link to a code or data repository that includes any identifying information about you, your submission may be desk-rejected. Please anonymize any code/data/links that you include in your submission.

Q: Is it okay to search the internet for a submission that I am assigned to review? Is it okay that I have already seen a submission that I am assigned to review (and hence already know who the authors are)?

A: Reviewers should NOT search the internet (or elsewhere) for submissions they are assigned to review, as this could violate the double-blind review policy. Naturally, this is not something we can explicitly enforce, and reviewers may have legitimately already seen de-anonymized versions of submissions they are assigned (e.g., if a literature search turns up an arXiv preprint). But the goal of the double-blind review policy is to try to reduce biases that might arise from having knowledge of a submission's authors. Also reviewers should wait to have read the paper at least once before doing a literature search on the topic of the paper.