FORC 2027: Call for Papers
The 8th annual Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC) will be held on June 2–4, 2027 at Stanford University.
As in recent years, FORC 2027 will have two submission cycles, with early notification and accepted-paper announcements following the first cycle, before the deadline for the second cycle. A highlights track will complement the archival program through a lightweight nomination process. Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.
FORC is a forum for mathematical research in computation and society writ large. The symposium aims to build a community applying theoretical computer science, statistics, economics, and other analytical disciplines to pressing and emerging societal challenges.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Theoretical approaches to fairness in machine learning, including definitions, algorithms, lower bounds, and tradeoffs;
- Formal approaches to privacy, including differential privacy;
- Computational and mathematical social choice, including apportionment and redistricting;
- Fair allocation and fair division;
- Economic incentives and mechanism design for social good;
- Measures and implications of robustness, including formal methods for explainability;
- Bias in the formation of and diffusion through social networks;
- Mathematical approaches connecting computer science, law, and ethics; and
- AI Safety and Alignment.
The program committee also welcomes mathematically rigorous research on societal problems that have received less attention in theoretical computer science, including education, sustainability, housing, climate change, and labor markets.
Submissions should explain their contribution to responsible computing, broadly construed. Papers should clearly motivate the problem, develop and present a mathematically rigorous solution, explain how that solution addresses the problem, and discuss its limitations. Proofs of all central claims should be included. The committee will value clear writing that makes the paper’s accomplishments accessible.
Authors are encouraged to consider relevant ethical guidance, such as the ACM Code of Ethics or the DFG Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice, when conducting, disseminating, and submitting their work.
Important Dates and Information
First submission cycle
- Submission deadline: November 11, 2026, anywhere on Earth
- Author notification: December 23, 2026
Second submission cycle
- Submission deadline: February 17, 2027, anywhere on Earth
- Author notification: March 31, 2027
- Final version deadline: TBA
- Highlights nomination deadline: February 17, 2027, anywhere on Earth
- Symposium: June 2–4, 2027
Presentation of Accepted Papers
The symposium will include presentations of accepted papers and invited talks. At least one author of each accepted paper should attend to present the work. Requests to present remotely will be considered only in exceptional circumstances.
A 10-page version of each accepted paper will appear in the proceedings, subject to the extended-abstract option described below. Dual submissions are not permitted.
Best Paper Awards
All submissions will be considered for the Best Paper award(s). Submissions with at least one student author will also be considered for the Best Student Paper award(s).
Program Committee Member Submissions
Papers authored or coauthored by program committee members may be submitted.
Submission Format
The proceedings of FORC 2027 will be published by LIPIcs. Authors are encouraged, but not required, to use the LIPIcs format during submission. Otherwise, submissions should use an 11-point font and a single-column layout with reasonable margins.
Author names and affiliations should appear on the first page. Reviewing is single-blind, not double-blind. There are no other formatting or length requirements. However, reviewers are only required to read the first 10 pages, excluding references. Authors should therefore state the main results, their significance, and their limitations clearly within those pages.
Authors seeking a different final publication format to accommodate subsequent journal publication may contact the program chair about the extended-abstract option below.
Submission Instructions
The submission link will be available soon.
Authors whose papers are not accepted in the first cycle should only resubmit in the second cycle if they believe they have adequately addressed the reviewers’ feedback and/or significantly improved their results. A resubmission should include a note explaining the changes made since the first submission.
Policy on the Use of Generative AI
Authors may use generative AI tools in preparing their submissions. No AI tools can be listed as submission authors, and the authors remain fully responsible for the content of the submissions, including correctness, proper attribution of prior work, and correct citations.
Authors are required to disclose any substantial use of generative AI tools in preparing their manuscript. This includes using AI tools to generate ideas, to help with constructing or verifying mathematical arguments, with drafting the text of the submission, or with finding references. Uses of AI tools for minor editorial assistance, e.g., checking grammer and spelling, need not be disclosed.
The organizers reserve the right to make submitted papers publicly available after the deadline, and to upload submissions to third-party AI-detection tools as part of the review and screening process. By submitting a paper to FORC 2027, authors consent to these uses.
Dual Submission Policy
Submissions must not be substantially similar to papers previously published or accepted at another peer-reviewed conference with proceedings, or to papers submitted in parallel to such a conference. Papers substantially similar to work already accepted or published in a journal at the time of submission are also ineligible.
Work publicly available without peer review—for example, as a technical report on SSRN, arXiv, or ePrint—is welcome.
One-page extended abstract option. To accommodate disciplinary publication practices, authors of accepted papers may request that the proceedings contain only a one-page abstract with a URL linking to the full paper. The link must remain reliable for at least two years. This option accommodates later publication in journals that do not accept results previously published in preliminary form in conference proceedings.
Papers requesting this option must still be submitted and formatted in the same way as papers intended for full-text publication.
Conflicts of Interest
At submission, authors should identify program committee members who may be unable to review their work objectively. Examples include current or former PhD advisor–advisee relationships, affiliation with the same institution, other very close professional or personal relationships, and involvement in an incident of harassment.
Highlights Track
We invite nominations for talks and other activities that will enrich the conference program alongside the archival track. The program committee will select presentations. Nominations may concern your own work or the work of others.
Examples include:
- Talks on individual papers published in a peer-reviewed conference or journal since the last FORC submission deadline, or for which a public full version is available, for example on SSRN, arXiv, or ePrint;
- Overviews or technical tutorials covering related papers, potentially spanning several talk sessions; and
- Community activities such as themed panels or open-problem sessions.
Nomination deadline: February 17, anywhere on Earth.
Nomination format: At most one page, briefly describing the proposed paper or activity and explaining its potential contribution to FORC. Nominations involving specific papers should identify any archival publication venues, provide links to the papers, and give their publication dates.
Program Committee
Aleksandar Nikolov, University of Toronto — Program Chair
TBA
Contact
Questions about submissions or publication arrangements may be directed to anikolov@cs.toronto.edu.
