ICML 2021 Call for Workshops

Friday, July 23, and Saturday, July 24, online

Following the ICML 2021 main conference, workshops will be held on Friday, July 23rd, and Saturday, July 24th. We invite researchers interested in chairing one of these workshops to submit proposals. Workshop organizers have several responsibilities, including coordinating workshop participation and content, publicizing and providing the program in a timely manner, and moderating the program throughout the workshop.

ICML also solicits proposals for affinity workshops. The format and aims of these workshops should be described by the workshop organizers, following, for instance, the template set out by similar workshops (WiML, Black in AI, LatinX in AI, Queer in AI, New in ML, {Dis}Ability in AI, Muslims in ML, Indigenous in AI),  at NeurIPS/ICLR/ICML (e.g., see https://icml.cc/virtual/2020/workshops). The affinity workshops are typically held during the main conference or the day before. Affinity workshop proposals should follow a similar format as regular workshop proposals (see below) and should be emailed directly to worksho…@icml.cc with the subject line “Affinity workshop: [name of workshop].” The deadline for affinity workshop proposals is Mar 05, 2021 11:59 PM AOE or .

Workshops

The goal of the workshops is to provide an informal forum for researchers to discuss emerging research questions and challenges. Workshops will last for one day, with morning and afternoon sessions and free time between the sessions for individual exchange. To encourage workshop variety, all workshops will be one-day workshops.

The workshops can be on any subject relevant to an appreciable fraction of the ICML community. Schedules should encourage lively debates, and topics should lean more towards exploring new ideas, open problems, and interdisciplinary areas, compared with the main conference. Workshops should encourage contributed content and reserve a significant portion of time for open discussion/panel discussion and posters. A diverse group of speakers is more likely to bring diverse and surprising viewpoints on a topic. As a result, we encourage workshop organizers to be cognizant of designing panels and speaker lists that are inclusive.

Below, we include the criteria by which workshop submissions will be evaluated:

1. Fit for ICML (connections to rest of program and past workshops)
2. Potential impact (promising topic)
3. Novelty and originality (emerging topic)
4. Quality of the abstract & clarity of purpose
5. Confirmed invited speakers with sufficient coverage of the topic
6. Organizers' relevant expertise (please avoid excessive self-promotion)
7. Organizers & speakers diversity
8. Room for contributed work (posters and contributed talks)
9. Open discussion/panel

Submission Instructions

Workshops submissions will be made through CMT. Please follow the URL below and check the required format for the application well before the proposal deadline. You may submit and update your application online right up until this deadline.

Important dates for workshop submissions:

• Workshop Application Deadline: Mar 05, 2021 11:59 PM AOE or
• Workshop Notification: Apr 02, 2021

* AOE = Anywhere On Earth

Proposals should be submitted electronically at the following URL (please use the same email address that you use for ICML.cc):

https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/ICMLWORKSHOPS2021

The organizers of each accepted workshop can name four individuals per day of the workshop to receive complimentary workshop registrations. In the event the conference sells out, each workshop will be given a number of guaranteed registrations for the workshop contributors, so please let us know in the application how many registrations you anticipate you will need.

Proposals should be two pages long in single column A4 or letter format, with font size 11 or greater, excluding organizer contact details/CVs and bibliographic references.

Submission format

Proposals should clearly specify the following:

• Workshop title
• A brief description of the topics to be covered, and an explanation as to why the workshop will appeal to ICML audiences
• A short description and rough timetable of the planned activities (talks, posters, panels)
• List of invited speakers, specifying who is confirmed and who is unconfirmed.
• A description of the history of the workshop (if it previously took place, then when/where)
• Similar past and current events at ICML and NeurIPS in the last 1-2 years, even if not organized by the present workshop organizers. New workshops are welcome to build on prior workshops if a good case is made; completely original workshops are also welcome.
• A brief description of how you plan to make the workshop interactive (e.g., pre-recorded videos vs. live sessions) and how you plan to engage potential attendees across the globe in vastly different time zones
• A list of organizers with email addresses, web page URLs, pointers to Google Scholar or other similar citation service pages, a one-paragraph bio for each organizer, describing research expertise, and previous experience organizing scientific meetings

Workshop review committee

ICML 2021 Workshop Chairs

worksho…@icml.cc

Raman Arora (Johns Hopkins University)
Jun Zhu (Tsinghua University)