Loading...
 
Skip to main content

Call for Hot off the Press


Open

Link to the submission site

Description

The Hot Off the Press (HOP) track offers authors of recent papers the opportunity to present their work to the GECCO community, both by giving an oral or poster presentation on one of the three main days of the conference and by having a 2-page abstract appear in the Proceedings Companion, in which the workshop papers, late-breaking abstracts, and tutorials also appear. We invite researchers to submit summaries of their own work recently published in well-respected conferences and journals. Contributions are selected based on their scientific quality and their relevance to the GECCO community. Typical contributions include (but are not limited to) evolutionary computation papers that have appeared at venues different from GECCO, papers comparing different heuristics, optimization and/or machine learning methods that have appeared at a general AI venue, papers describing applications of evolutionary methods that have appeared at venues of this application domain, or papers describing methods with relevance to the GECCO community that have appeared at a venue centered around this method’s domain. In any case, it is the authors’ responsibility to make clear why this work is relevant for the GECCO community, and to present the results in a language accessible to the GECCO community.

Acceptance criteria

The HoP chairs will consider a series of different criteria when making decision and aim at a diverse range of contributions.

  • An HOP paper must be of significant interest to the GECCO community.
  • An HOP paper must have appeared in a well-respected journal or conference proceeding. For journal publications, it suffices that the paper is finally accepted and available on the publisher’s webpage.
  • An HOP paper must not have been published in its final form earlier than 2025.
  • The core of the paper must not have been presented at a GECCO conference before.

Due to capacity constraints, submissions may be accepted for presentation as an oral or a poster presentation. Authors are invited to indicate any preference for the presentation format in their submission. Final decision on presentation format will be made by the HoP chairs.

Publication

Submitters to the HOP have the choice between: (1) only giving an oral or poster presentation at the conference or (2) presenting at the conference (oral or poster) and additionally having a 2-page abstract appear in the GECCO Proceedings Companion. Acceptance/rejection of the submission will only be based on the acceptance criteria described above, not on the choice regarding the 2-page abstract.

Submission

A submission that aims at becoming a 2-page abstract in the GECCO Proceedings Companion must follow relatively strict rules. It must consist of the 2-page abstract that shall appear in the proceedings and a compulsory appendix with additional details.

The paper should give a concise description of the main results of the work in a language understood by the GECCO community. Where not obvious from the result, the particular interest to the GECCO audience must be clearly explained. The abstract of the 2-page abstract must clearly indicate the original paper it is based on. This part of the paper, at the time of submission, must be in the form the authors propose for its appearance in the Proceedings Companion.

The compulsory appendix (which will be used for reviewing purposes alone) may contain any additional information the authors want to provide to the reviewers. It must indicate a GECCO track (Tracks) that is most relevant and contain a complete description regarding the way the results may have been presented at previous GECCO conferences. It must also contain a direct link to the original paper in PDF format. If the original paper appeared at a venue the reviewers might be unfamiliar with, then an explanation of its reputation is desirable. Any other arguments in favor of the paper should be provided as well. The appendix should be brief.

If authors of an original paper prefer to only present their results at GECCO without a 2-page abstract appearing in the Proceedings Companion, then their submission does not need to follow the above rules. However, this type of submission still requires (i) a short summary of the results accessible to reviewers with a typical GECCO background, (ii) an indication of why the results are particularly interesting for the GECCO audience, (iii) a declaration regarding the extent to which they have been presented at previous GECCOs, (iv) a link to the paper, and (v) indicate a GECCO track (Tracks) that is most relevant.

Finally, all authors should clearly indicate in their submission whether they prefer an oral or poster presentation.

How to Submit

  • Submission opening: March 2, 2026 Open to submissions
  • Submission site: https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/gecco (select category "Hot Off the Press" in the submission form).
  • Submission deadline: April 3, 2026
  • Page limit: 2 pages using ACM template. See Paper Submission Instructions.
  • Author agreement: By submitting an abstract, the author(s) agree that, if their paper is accepted, they will:
    • Submit a final, revised, camera-ready version to the publisher (May 5, 2026)
    • Register at least one author who will present the paper (May 11, 2026)
  • Notification: April 28, 2026
  • Submission of Camera-Ready Abstract: May 5, 2026

Copyright

Submitters of a 2-page abstract must ensure that there is no copyright conflict with the original submission. We do not expect significant problems here. Firstly, a HOP paper is an excellent advertisement for the original paper, so it is clearly not in the interest of a publisher to make HOP submissions difficult. Secondly, a good HOP submission, to optimally address the GECCO audience with 2 pages only, in almost all cases will contain a significant amount of new text. Nevertheless, it remains the authors' duty to take care of the copyright situation. This includes the reproduction of original artwork, for which a consent of the original publisher might be required. Authors retain the copyright of the HOP abstract, so there is no problem from the ACM or GECCO side.

ACM Open publishing model

The 2-page abstract submissions are not APC eligible (i.e. authors do not have to pay an Article Processing Charge)

Accepted papers and presentations

At least one author of an accepted presentation or paper is required to register for the conference (May 11, 2026) and present the result at the conference.

More Information

For more information, contact the Hot off the Press Chairs: