ACM SIGSIM-PADS 2026 seeks high-quality research in Modeling and Simulation. This page details the submission guidelines, formatting requirements, and publication policies for all contributors.
All the submissions are made through EasyChair. For each accepted paper, at least one author must attend the conference and present the work.
All PADS 2026 papers will be published under ACM Open (see below for more details).
Paper Formats
Papers must be written in English and present original and unpublished content. All tracks accept full and short paper contributions.
Full papers should be at most 10 pages in ACM proceedings format, excluding references and any appendices. Please note that reviewers are not required to review appendices, although they may choose to do so.
Short papers should be at most 4 pages in ACM proceedings format, excluding references and any appendices.
Extended abstracts should be at most 2 pages including references.
Short papers should describe interesting, novel research in an early stage of development or position papers of interest to the community. All short papers will be fully reviewed and published in the conference proceedings.
All papers should be formatted according to the Standard ACM Proceedings Template. Only LaTeX papers will be accepted for the camera ready submission.
Paper Reviewing
All first time submissions will be reviewed using a dual-anonymous review process, i.e., the identity of authors and referees will not be revealed to each other. To ensure blind reviewing, all identifying information must be removed from the manuscript: this includes removing authors’ names and affiliations, acknowledgments, funding information, and all references to the authors’ work that would disclose their identity.
Please note if you are submitting a revised version to the second call, it will be reviewed with a single-anonymous review process, so the identity of authors may be revealed if the authors wish so. In addition, please be aware that EasyChair does not handle revised versions, you need to submit your paper to the second call as a new submission.
In any case authors’ names and affiliations, acknowledgements etc. need to be added to the accepted manuscripts.
2026 ACM Open Access Policy
Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 2,700+ institutions already part of ACM Open, with more institutions joining from around the world every week, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 75% on average across all ACM-sponsored conferences).
Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a geographic or discretionary financial hardship waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the Policy on Geographic APC Waivers and Discounts Policy and the Policy on Discretionary APC Waivers. Keep in mind that discretionary waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM. Simply sending a message to ACM indicating an inability to pay an APC is typically insufficient justification for such a waiver. Waivers are based on the specific circumstances of the author(s) requesting the waiver. ACM does take into consideration the institutional affiliation of the authors and whether it is a reasonable expectation that their institution should join the ACM Open program. This is necessary for the long-term financial sustainability of the ACM Open model.
Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. A subsidy will be offered for ACM proceedings articles:
- $250 APC for ACM/SIG members
- $350 for non-members
This represents a 65% discount off the regular APC list prices, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period. This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.
Author Guidelines and Policies
Please consider the following when submitting your paper:
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.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
Artifact Evaluation
PADS has joined the group of ACM conferences that have established an optional reviewing process to evaluate artifacts and reproduce computational results. When submitting a contribution, the authors can choose to undergo evaluation, but this process has no effect on the standard paper evaluation process, as the reproducibility process only starts after the paper is accepted.
For more information, see the Artifact Evaluation page.