Call for Papers

The ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop 2026 (ANRW’26), co-located with IETF-126, is the eleventh edition of an academic workshop that provides a forum for researchers, vendors, and network operators to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research with the Internet standards community.

The workshop combines presentations of new research in the form of regular papers and short papers. ANRW’26 accepts the following types of submissions:

• Regular papers present new research that has not been previously published. For a regular paper to be considered for publication, please submit work describing early/emerging results in a relevant topic area. Position papers are also welcome. There is a 6-page limit for regular papers, including figures, tables, and any appendices, optionally followed by unlimited additional pages for references.
• Short papers can provide a summary of early, emerging, or on-going work as well as short updates of previously published work. Position papers are also welcome. This type of submission will either be presented as a short talk or a lighting-style talk together with a dedicated poster session, depending on the number of accepted submissions. For a short paper to be considered for publication, please submit a short paper that is no longer than 2 pages, with a maximum of one additional page for references only.

Paper topics are not restricted to current standardization activities of related IETF working groups or activity in related IRTF research groups. We also welcome papers on topics relating to applied networking research that may become relevant to the IETF or IRTF in the future. All topics related to the development of the Internet, its infrastructure, protocols, services and governance are in scope. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Development and deployment experience of new or enhanced Internet protocols (e.g., for transport, security, or routing).
• Improvements, measurements, and analysis of the security and privacy of new and existing Internet protocols and privacy enhancing technologies.
• Evolution of interconnection, and new approaches on network management, operations, and control.
• Practical congestion control for heterogeneous networks and novel applications.
• Better ways of specifying protocols, including usable techniques for protocol verification.
• Research and analysis of consolidation and centralization of the Internet, as well as Internet governance.
• Techniques for monitoring and debugging of (encrypted) Internet protocols.
• Measurement and analysis of the performance of networks, including the performance or quality of experience of networked applications.
• Design, measurement, or analysis of wireless, mobile, cellular, or satellite networks.
• Internet resilience and recovery, including physically challenging environments and events (e.g., remote areas, natural disaster situations).
• Approaches and efforts towards decentralizing and democratizing the Internet.
• The changing semantics of IP addresses and connection-level metadata at large-scale (e.g. Addressing Agility, Private Relay).
• Applications and threats of AI/ML to operation, management, reliability, performance, security, or other aspects of networks.
• Use of programmable networks, including software defined networks (SDNs) and programmable data planes such as P4, XDP, and eBPF.
• Design of energy-efficient protocols, devices, and network architectures.
• Topics relevant to the standardization activities of related IETF working groups or IRTF research groups.

ANRW’26 is co-located with IETF-126 in Vienna, and takes place in the week of July 18-24, 2026. This gives IETF as well as workshop attendees the opportunity to exchange ideas on topics and open problems discussed at the workshop and the IETF.

ANRW’26 will be a hybrid event. Remote participation options will be available; please contact the chairs if you intend to submit work but know in advance that you will not be able to present the work in-person at the workshop.

ANRW’26 particularly encourages the submission of results that could form the basis for future engineering work in the IETF, by, for example providing input and analysis on Internet protocols or operational Internet practices, as well as influence further research and experimentation in the IRTF.

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Formatting

All submissions must satisfy the following requirements:

• Regular papers: up to 6 pages for technical content (including appendices) + unlimited pages for references
• Short papers: up to 2 pages for an extended abstract (including appendices) + a maximum of one page for references.
• 10-point font for main text; font used in other places (e.g., figures) should be no smaller than 9 point
• Two-column format, with the size of each column being at most 3.33 x 9.25 inches and the space between columns being at least 0.33 inches letter page size (8.5 x 11 inches)
• We strongly encourage the use of the new ACM LaTeX template, which satisfies these style requirements provided you specify a 10-point font size. The following settings should produce this output: \documentclass[10pt,sigconf,letterpaper]{acmart}
• Author names and affiliations or other identifying information such as grant numbers must not appear. The text of the submission must refer to the authors’ own previous work in the third person.

Submissions that do not comply with these requirements will be rejected without review. It is your responsibility to ensure that your submission satisfies the above requirements.

Paper Novelty

An accepted paper that is published must not be based on previously published work, and cannot describe work that is currently under submission to another venue. An accepted paper that is published also must not plagiarize the work of its authors or of any other authors.

The ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism applies to the ANRW, and action will be taken against submitters who have engaged in such practices.

Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement requests will not be considered for review or publication, nor ever be disclosed.

Reviews

All submissions will be peer reviewed (double-blind). Reviews will be shared with the authors.

Authors and TPC members provide conflict-of-interest information. It is important that all authors of a submission are indicated in the submission system and that all authors enter any conflicts of interest. Broadly, a conflict of interest exists when:

• You are currently employed at the same organization, have been previously employed at the same organization within the last twelve months, or are going to begin employment at the same organization.
• You have a past or present thesis advisement, or a professional relationship such as collaboration on a project, publication, or grant proposal within the past two years.

These are examples – use your own good judgment.

Diversity Travel Grants

There are no specific travel grants for the ANRW. However, the IRTF offers diversity travel grants.

Open Access and Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Beginning with ANRW 2026, all accepted papers will be published Open Access in the ACM Digital Library as part of ACM’s 100% OA publishing model for ACM- and SIG-sponsored conferences. In most cases, if at least one (co-)author’s institution participates in ACM Open, the paper will be published Open Access at no cost to the authors. Authors whose institutions are not part of ACM Open may be asked to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) according to ACM’s policy. If no author is covered by ACM Open and the APC would present a barrier to submission, please contact the ANRW chairs: ANRW, the IRTF, and ACM SIGCOMM aim to ensure that APCs do not prevent relevant work from being presented, and a limited amount of financial support may be available, subject to budget constraints and independent of the technical review process.

Note Well

As a participant or attendee, you agree to work respectfully with other participants and follow the Code of Conduct and Anti-Harassment Procedures. Please contact the ombudsteam if you have questions or concerns about this.

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 the ACM 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.

The ANRW is an academic workshop co-sponsored by ACM SIGCOMM and the IRTF. Papers submitted to the ANRW are not contributions to the IETF standards process and accordingly IPR disclosures are not required.

Personal information that you provide to IRTF will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Policy.

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: