The ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop 2026 (ANRW’26) is an academic workshop that provides a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators, and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research, and to find inspiration from topics and open problems discussed at the IETF. The workshop will consist of a mix of invited talks, submitted regular papers, and submitted short papers.

ANRW’26 particularly encourages the submission of results that could form the basis for future engineering work in the IETF, help better specify Internet protocols, change operational Internet practices, or influence further research and experimentation in the IRTF. ANRW’26 is sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM, and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).

The ANRW ’26 is a one-day workshop that will take place in Vienna, Austria co-locating with the IETF-126 meeting. The workshop will be held on Monday, July 20, 2026.

Open Access for ANRW 2026

Starting with ANRW 2026, the ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop participates in ACM’s new Open Access publishing model for ACM- and SIG-sponsored conferences. This means that all ANRW papers will be published Open Access in the ACM Digital Library and will be freely available to read worldwide.

Who pays (and when)?

ACM’s default is that if the corresponding author (or any co-author designated in the ACM rights system) is affiliated with an institution participating in ACM Open, the paper is published Open Access without any APC charged to the authors. For papers where no author is covered by ACM Open, ACM may charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) under its current policy. Some authors may also qualify for ACM’s geographic or hardship waivers.

ANRW’s approach to APCs

ANRW, together with the IRTF and ACM SIGCOMM, is committed to keeping the workshop accessible to the broader applied-networking community, including practitioners, operators, and researchers from less-resourced institutions. We therefore do not want APCs to become a barrier to submitting or presenting at ANRW. If none of the authors on a submission is covered by ACM Open and paying an APC would prevent you from contributing your work, please contact the ANRW chairs as early as possible. Subject to available sponsorship and budget, we expect to be able to offer a limited number of APC waivers or reimbursements, allocated independently of the technical review process.

Important Dates

Paper submission deadline	17 April 2026 (11:59pm AoE)
Paper notification deadline	8 June 2026
Camera-ready paper deadline	17 June 2026
Registration opens	27 February 2026
ANRW ’26 workshop	Monday, July 20, 2026

Supporters and Sponsors

The ANRW workshop series is sponsored by the following organizations: