Call for PhD Symposium

Call for PhD Symposium Chairs – Web Science 2026

Important dates

  • PhD Symposium proposal submission: February 18, 2026
  • PhD Symposium proposal notification: March 11, 2026
  • Camera ready version due: April 1, 2026
  • PhD Symposium Date: May 26, 2026

Note that all submission deadlines are end-of-day in the Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone.

 

Overview

We are pleased to announce the Interdisciplinary PhD Symposium at WebSci’26 happening in Braunschweig, Germany on 26 May 2026. This symposium will offer PhD students the opportunity to present and discuss their research plans and ongoing research for an interdisciplinary audience. We aim for a lively and engaged discussion, maximizing early-stage ideas exchange and interdisciplinary discussion on emerging or novel ideas/research. This Symposium provides an opportunity for PhD students to receive constructive feedback and aims to bring together early-career and senior scholars working on related topics.

Submission Guidelines

We are seeking up to 3 pages (including references, appendices, etc.) single-blind submissions, and the student should be the single author. All papers should adopt the current ACM SIG Conference proceedings template (acmart.cls). Please submit papers as PDF files using the ACM template, either in Microsoft Word format (available at https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template under “Word Authors”) or with the ACM LaTeX template on the Overleaf platform, which is available at https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/association-for-computing-machinery-acm-sig-proceedings-template/bmvfhcdnxfty. In particular; please ensure that you are using the two-column version of the appropriate template.

Submissions will be accepted by February 18, 2026 (AOE) through EasyChair by selecting the ACM-WebSci26 PhD Symposium track at:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=websci26

All contributions will be judged by the PhD Symposium Program Committee. Accepted submissions will be included in the WebSci’26 companion proceedings and allowed for oral presentation during the PhD Symposium on 26 May 2026.

Submission Themes

We welcome quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, including techniques from the social sciences and computer science. We welcome papers on a wide range of topics at the heart of Web Science, including but not limited to:

Understanding the Web

  • Trends in globalization and fragmentation of the Web
  • The architecture, philosophy, and evolution of the Web
  • Automation and AI in all its manifestations relevant to the Web
  • Critical analyses of the Web and Web technologies
  • The Spread of Large Models on the Web

Making the Web Inclusive

  • Issues of discrimination and fairness
  • Intersectionality and design justice in questions of marginalization and inequality
  • Ethical challenges of technologies, data, algorithms, platforms, and people on the Web
  • Safeguarding and governance of the Web, including anonymity, security, and trust
  • Inclusion, literacy and the digital divide
  • Human-centered security and robustness on the Web

The Web and Everyday Life

  • Social machines, crowd computing, and collective intelligence
  • Web economics, social entrepreneurship, and innovation
  • Legal and policy issues, including rights and accountability for the AI industry
  • The creator economy: Humanities, arts, and culture on the Web
  • Politics and social activism on the Web
  • Online education and remote learning
  • Health and well-being online
  • Social presence in online professional event spaces
  • The Web as a source of news and information

Doing Web Science

  • Data curation, Web archives and stewardship in Web Science
  • Temporal and spatial dimensions of the Web as a repository of information
  • Analysis and modeling of human and automatic behavior (e.g., bots)
  • Analysis of online social and information networks
  • Detecting, preventing, and predicting anomalies in Web data (e.g., fake content, spam)
  • Novel analysis techniques for Web and social network analysis
  • Recommendation engines and contextual adaptation for Web tasks
  • Web-based information retrieval and information generation
  • Supporting heterogeneity across modalities, sensors, and channels on the Web.
  • User modeling and personalization approaches on the Web.

PhD Symposium Co-Chairs

  • Luis-Daniel Ibáñez (University of Southampton)
  • Haiming Liu (University of Southampton)