The annual ACM Middleware conference is a major forum for discussing innovations and recent scientific advances in middleware systems with a focus on the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation of distributed systems, platforms, and architectures for computing, storage, and communication. The conference will include a high-quality single-track technical program, invited speakers, an industrial track, panel discussions involving academic and industry leaders, poster and demonstration presentations, a doctoral symposium, tutorials, and workshops.
The Middleware conference seeks original submissions of research papers on a diverse range of topics, particularly those identifying new research directions. The topics of interest for the conference include, but are not limited to:
The conference seeks original papers of these types:
Middleware 2026 will have two submission deadlines, and we are providing the possibility of revision decisions for some papers that are deemed promising but somehow not yet complete. A more detailed explanation of the submission model is provided below.
The papers submitted to Middleware receive one of the following decisions depending on the submission track: (1) accept, (2) minor revision (one-shot revision), (3) major revision (resubmissions allowed to the next cycle), or (4) reject (ineligible for resubmission up to a year).
Only papers in the research and experimentation/deployment track will be eligible for the minor revision and the major revision decisions. Big ideas papers are not eligible for revision.
Authors of papers that are not early rejected will be provided an opportunity to respond to the reviews prior to the final decisions according to the schedule detailed above.
The guidelines for the various decision categories are as follows:
Authors of accepted papers must ensure that their papers will be presented at the conference according to the conference participation policy. ACM reserves the right to exclude a paper from proceeding and distribution (e.g., remove it from the ACM Digital Library) after the conference if none of the authors attend to present their paper.
Your submission must be made within the due date specified above for the specific cycles.
Formatting: Research papers and Experimentation and Deployment papers must have at most 12 pages of technical content, including text, figures, and appendices, but excluding any number of additional pages for bibliographic references. Big Ideas papers must not be longer than 6 pages of technical content including text, figures, and appendices, but excluding any additional pages for bibliographic references. Submitted papers must adhere to the formatting instructions of the ACM SIGCONF style, which can be found on the ACM template page. The font size has to be set to 9pt.
Paper type: As a subtitle, papers should indicate the submission type (e.g., Research, Experimentation and Deployment, Big Ideas) as: “Paper title [Research]” or “Paper title [Big Ideas]", etc.
Note that submissions must be doubly anonymous - authors' names must not appear on the manuscript, and authors must make a good-faith attempt to anonymize their submissions.
Please submit papers to https://middleware26.hotcrp.com/ (Cycle 1) and https://middleware2026c2.hotcrp.com/ (Cycle 2).
A paper submitted to ACM Middleware 2026 cannot be under review for any other conference or journal during the entire time it is considered for Middleware 2026, and it must be substantially different from any previously published work. All accepted papers will appear in the proceedings. ACM reserves the right to exclude a paper from distribution after the conference (e.g., removal from ACM Digital Library) if none of the authors attends the conference to present their paper.
The Middleware 2026 conference proceedings will be published in the ACM Digital Library. The official publication date will be when the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. Note that the official publication date may affect the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. A list of papers accepted from the 1st cycle review process (Winter submission) will be posted on the ACM Middleware 2026 website in May 2026. In October, when the full program is available, paper titles and abstracts will be posted for all accepted papers from the Winter and Summer deadlines.
Note to Authors: By submitting your article for distribution in this Special Interest Group publication, you now grant to ACM the following non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide rights:
However, as a contributing author, you retain the copyright to your article and ACM will refer requests for republication directly to you.
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.
Every research paper submitted to ACM Middleware 2026 will undergo a ''doubly-anonymous'' reviewing process: in addition to maintaining the anonymity of the reviewers of the papers, the PC members and reviewers will not know the identity of the authors. To ensure the anonymity of authorship, authors must at least do the following:
Authors should also use care in referring to related past work. The solution is to reference past work in the third person (in the same way that one would reference work by anyone else). This allows you to set the context for your submission while at the same time preserving anonymity.
Despite the anonymity requirements, authors should still include all relevant work, including their own; omitting them could reveal the author's identity by negation. However, self-references should be limited to the essential ones, and extended versions of the submitted paper (e.g., technical reports or URLs for downloadable versions) must not be referenced. The goal is to preserve anonymity while allowing the reader to grasp the context of the submitted paper fully. It is the responsibility of authors to do their very best to preserve anonymity. Papers that do not follow the guidelines or potentially reveal the author's identity are subject to immediate rejection.
The authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit supporting materials made publicly available as "source materials" in the ACM Digital Library. The materials will be vetted by the Artifact Availability Evaluation process run by a separate committee. This submission is voluntary but encouraged and will not influence the final decision regarding the papers. Papers that go through the Artifact Availability Evaluation process successfully and are made available in the ACM Digital Library will receive a badge printed on the papers themselves. For more information, please refer to the call for artifacts.
The ACM Open program is designed to help institutions actively support Open Access publishing. We're proud to share that more than 2,600 institutions worldwide are already participating—covering approximately 76% of all ACM conference papers. To be included in ACM Open, the corresponding author must be affiliated with a participating institution. For APC-eligible articles (research, short paper, and survey) where none of the authors are currently from participating institutions, an APC will be required. ACM understands this transition may create financial challenges. To ease the shift and give institutions more time to join ACM Open, the ACM Council has approved a subsidy for 2026 APCs. Authors whose institutions are not yet participating will pay a discounted rate of $250 (ACM/SIG Members) or $350 (Non-Members)—a 65% reduction. We encourage authors to use this transition year to help bring their institutions into the ACM Open program.
Note: ACM is not lowering APCs, but is instead contributing funds to temporarily subsidize APC pricing as the community adjusts to the Open Access program. ACM supports a fully Open Access future—OA papers get 2–3x more downloads and 70% more citations. Please encourage your authors to support this effort by paying APCs and by urging their institutions to join ACM Open.