**ACM MIDDLEWARE 2027: CALL FOR PAPERS**
Kyoto, Japan, December 13-17, 2027

The annual ACM Middleware conference is a major forum for discussing innovations and recent scientific advances in middleware systems with a focus on the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation of distributed systems, platforms, and architectures for computing, storage, and communication. The conference will include a high-quality single-track technical program, invited speakers, an industrial track, poster and demonstration presentations, a doctoral symposium, tutorials, and workshops.

**TOPICS OF INTEREST**

The Middleware 2027 edition seeks original research paper submissions on a diverse range of topics, particularly those identifying new research directions. The topics of interest for the conference include, but are not limited to:

*MIDDLEWARE APPLICATIONS*
- Middleware for cyber-physical systems, robotics, and autonomous systems
- Middleware for real-time systems
- Middleware support for security and privacy
- Middleware for AI and machine learning
- Middleware for LLM serving and inference systems
- Middleware for agentic AI systems
- Middleware techniques for Internet of Things and smart environments
- Middleware for sustainable computing
- Decentralized and local-first systems
- Middleware for quantum computing

*MIDDLEWARE SYSTEMS*
- Fault tolerance and consistency
- Confidential computing and trusted execution
- Distributed ledgers and blockchains
- Event-based, publish/subscribe, streaming, and peer-to-peer systems
- Serverless computing and workflow engines
- Data-intensive systems (big data)
- Edge and Fog Computing
- Data centers and resource management (scheduling, provisioning, disaggregation)
- Middleware for accelerators and GPU cluster management
- Networking, network function virtualization, and software-defined networking
- Virtualization and emerging isolation techniques
- Mobile and pervasive systems and services
- Energy, power, and carbon-aware techniques
- Emerging hardware technologies

*MIDDLEWARE DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND PROGRAMMING MODELS*
- Programming abstractions and paradigms for middleware
- Reconfigurable, adaptable, and reflective middleware
- Testing and verification of distributed middleware
- AI/ML for middleware design, implementation, and verification
- Critical reviews of middleware paradigms, e.g., object models, aspect orientation
- Methodologies and tools for middleware systems design, implementation, verification, and evaluation

The conference seeks original papers of three complementary types:

- Research Papers: These papers report original research on the above topics and will be evaluated on the problem's significance, the solution's novelty, advancement beyond prior work, sufficient supporting evidence, and presentation clarity.

- Experimentation and Deployment Papers: These papers describe complete systems, platforms, and/or comprehensive experimental evaluations of alternative designs and solutions to well-known problems. The emphasis during the review of these papers will be on the demonstrated usefulness and potential impact of the contributions, the extensive experimentation involved, and the quality and weight of the lessons learned.

- Big Ideas Papers: These papers have the potential to open new research directions. For such papers, the potential to motivate new research matters more than a full experimental evaluation, though some preliminary evidence of the approach's or idea's effectiveness is important.

**CONTACT**

The Middleware 2027 PC co-chairs are:

- Klara Nahrstedt, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
- Etienne Riviere, UCLouvain, Belgium

They can be contacted at middleware2027pcchairs@gmail.com

**IMPORTANT DATES, DEADLINES, AND CONDITIONS**

Middleware 2027 will have two submission deadlines, and we are offering revision decisions for a limited set of papers deemed promising but not yet complete. A more detailed explanation of the submission model is provided below.

**FIRST CYCLE - WINTER DEADLINE**
- Paper abstract registration: November 27, 2026
- Full paper submissions due: December 4, 2026 (Firm deadline)
- Early rejection notification: February 2, 2027
- Rebuttal: March 3-7, 2027
- Notification to authors: March 29, 2027
- Final paper files (camera-ready copy) due: May 7, 2027

**SECOND CYCLE - SUMMER DEADLINE**
- Paper abstract registration: May 28, 2027
- Full paper submissions due: June 4, 2027 (Firm deadline)
- Early rejection notification: July 13, 2027
- Rebuttal: August 18-22, 2027
- Notification to authors: September 13, 2027
- Final paper files (camera-ready copy) due: October 15, 2027

**PAPER DECISION AND RESUBMISSION/REVISION GUIDELINES**

The papers submitted to Middleware 2027 will receive one of the following decisions: (1) accept, (2) minor revision (one-shot revision), (3) major revision (resubmissions allowed to the next cycle), or (4) reject (ineligible for resubmission up to a year).

Only papers of the research and experimentation/deployment types will be eligible for the minor revision and the major revision decisions. Big ideas papers are not eligible for revision.

Authors of papers not rejected early will have an opportunity to respond to the reviews before the final decisions, according to the "rebuttal" schedule detailed above.

The guidelines for the various decision categories are as follows:

- Accept: Papers in this category will be accepted for publication in the proceedings and presentation at the conference.

- Minor Revision: Papers in this category will need minor revisions based on a list of necessary changes and will be accepted only if reviewers find the revision satisfactory. These revisions must be completed within the same submission cycle, about a month after the decisions are sent out.

- Major Revision: Papers in this category are considered promising but need additional work (e.g., new implementations, experiments, proofs, etc.). Authors may choose to revise and resubmit such papers to the following cycle of Middleware (Summer cycle for papers submitted in the Winter cycle, or Winter cycle of Middleware 2028 if submitted in the Summer cycle), with appropriate revisions. The revision and second review of papers in this category will be based on a list of "revision tasks" clearly specified by the original reviewers and conveyed to the authors upon notification. A revised paper will be accepted to Middleware if it satisfactorily fulfills the revision tasks. This review will be conducted, to the extent possible, by the same reviewers as the original review. A paper may undergo at most one major revision.

- Reject: Papers in this category cannot be submitted to Middleware until a full year has passed.

Authors of accepted papers must ensure their papers are presented at the conference in accordance with the conference participation policy. ACM reserves the right to exclude a paper from proceeding and distribution (i.e., remove it from the ACM Digital Library) after the conference if none of the authors attend to present their paper. Middleware 2027 will be an in-person event with no hybrid participation option.

**SUBMISSION GUIDELINES**

Submissions must be made by the due date specified above for each cycle.

Formatting: Research papers and Experimentation and Deployment papers must be at most 12 pages of technical content, including text, figures, and appendices, excluding any additional pages for bibliographic references and the mandatory AI and ethics mentions required by this call. Big Ideas papers must not be longer than 6 pages of technical content, including text, figures, and appendices, but excluding any additional pages for bibliographic references and mandatory AI and ethics mentions. Submitted papers must adhere to the formatting instructions of the ACM SIGCONF style, which can be found on the ACM template page. The font size has to be set to 9pt.

Paper type: As a subtitle, papers should indicate the submission type (e.g., Research, Experimentation and Deployment, Big Ideas) as well as the cycle (Winter/Summer) and submission number assigned by the HotCRP platform (e.g., "Research, Winter cycle, Submission #12").

Note that submissions must be doubly anonymous - authors' names must not appear on the manuscript, and authors must make a good-faith attempt to anonymize their submissions.

Please submit papers to:
- https://middleware2027r1.hotcrp.com/ (Winter cycle)
- https://middleware2027r2.hotcrp.com/ (Summer cycle)

A paper submitted to ACM Middleware 2027 cannot be under review for any other conference or journal during the entire time it is considered for Middleware 2027, and it must be substantially different from any previously published work.

The Middleware 2027 conference proceedings will be published in the ACM Digital Library. The official publication date will be when the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. Note that the official publication date may affect the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. A list of papers accepted from the 1st cycle review process (Winter submission) will be posted on the ACM Middleware 2027 website in May 2027. In October, when the full program is available, paper titles and abstracts will be posted for all accepted papers from the Winter and Summer deadlines.

Note to Authors: By submitting your article for distribution in this Special Interest Group publication, you now grant to ACM the following non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide rights:
- to publish in print on condition of acceptance by the editor
- to digitize and post your article in the electronic version of this publication
- to include the article in the ACM Digital Library and any Digital Library-related services
- to allow users to make a personal copy of the article for non-commercial, educational or research purposes

However, as a contributing author, you retain the copyright to your article, and ACM will refer requests for republication directly to you.

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 ACM's new 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.

**[NEW] ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS**

Authors should consider the ethical implications and broader societal effects of their research. Submissions raising ethical questions (those involving human participants, user data, or real-world vulnerability analysis, for example) must contain a dedicated "Ethical Considerations" section that weighs risks against benefits and describes the measures taken to limit harm (e.g., responsible disclosure, data anonymization). This section is excluded from the page limit and must follow the 12-page main body and bibliography. Papers that do not raise ethical questions are not required to include this section.

**[NEW] POLICY ON THE USE OF GENERATIVE AI AND LLMS**

Middleware 2027 follows the ACM Policy on Authorship regarding the use of generative AI tools. Authors and reviewers must follow these guidelines when using Large Language Models (LLMs) and other generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot).

Guidelines for authors: Generative AI may assist in preparing submissions, but authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the work and must review all AI-assisted text, figures, code, data, and citations as critically as their own; AI tools cannot be authors. Hallucinated citations, fabricated or falsified data or results, and other invented claims may lead to desk rejection, are treated as research misconduct, and in serious cases may be reported to authors' institutions or ACM bodies, with sanctions up to submission bans and retractions. All uses of generative AI and LLMs must be disclosed. Minor editorial help (grammar, spelling, light polishing) needs only a brief Acknowledgements note. When AI generated or substantially rewrote substantive content, a dedicated "Generative AI Usage" section, placed after the 12-page main content and bibliography, must name the tools, identify the affected parts, and explain how the output was validated.

Guidelines for reviewers: To protect the confidentiality of peer review, reviewers may not upload any part of a submitted manuscript, including the abstract, figures, equations, tables, or code, to public generative AI or LLM services. Under the ACM Peer Review Policy, submissions are confidential, and such systems may store, index, or train on the input without the authors' consent. Reviewers may use AI tools on their own text, for instance, to check grammar, only if they include no content from the submission.

**CONFLICTS OF INTEREST**

Authors must declare all committee members they believe have a conflict of interest. Mandatory conflicts include current or former doctoral advisors and advisees, colleagues at the same institution, close family members, and co-authors from the past two years; any other conflict must be explained to the Program Chairs, who may request justification and remove non-mandatory conflicts at their discretion. Conflicted members, chairs included, are excluded from a paper's evaluation and discussion. Program Chairs may not author any submission.

**ANONYMITY REQUIREMENTS FOR DOUBLE-ANONYMOUS REVIEWING**

Every research paper submitted to ACM Middleware 2027 will undergo a ''doubly-anonymous'' reviewing process: in addition to maintaining the anonymity of the reviewers of the papers, the PC members and reviewers will not know the identity of the authors. To ensure the anonymity of authorship, authors must at least do the following:

Authors' names and affiliations must not appear on the title page or elsewhere in the paper. Funding sources must not be acknowledged anywhere in the paper under review; these can be added to accepted papers upon submission of the camera-ready manuscript. Non-anonymized links to the authors' online content must be removed. Research group members, or other colleagues or collaborators, must not be acknowledged anywhere in the paper.

Authors should also use care in referring to related past work. The solution is to reference past work in the third person (in the same way that one would reference work by anyone else). This allows setting the context for your submission while at the same time preserving anonymity.

Despite the anonymity requirements, authors should still include all relevant work, including their own; omitting them could reveal the author's identity by negation. However, self-references should be limited to the essential ones, and non-peer-reviewed variants of the submitted paper (e.g., technical reports or URLs for downloadable versions) must not be referenced. The goal is to preserve anonymity while allowing the reader to grasp the context of the submitted paper fully. It is the responsibility of authors to do their very best to preserve anonymity. Papers that do not follow the guidelines or potentially reveal the author's identity are subject to immediate rejection.

Adding a link to research artifacts is encouraged but not mandatory. Authors who opt to do so should use anonymization tools (e.g., Anonymous GitHub) and be careful not to leave any element allowing their identification.

Middleware 2027 adopts a flexible policy regarding preprints and sharing of results. While a paper is under review for the conference, authors may choose to present their work in non-public events (e.g., department seminar but not at an open workshop), post a preprint of the paper to an archival repository such as arXiv, or disclose security vulnerabilities to vendors. Authors should refrain from widely advertising their results, and should use a different name for the submission (in particular for acronyms or systems' names) than what might be posted online. In return, reviewers will be instructed not to actively look for the identity of authors.

**SOFTWARE AND DATA ARTIFACT AVAILABILITY FOR ACCEPTED PAPERS**

The authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit supporting materials made publicly available as "source materials" in the ACM Digital Library. A separate committee will vet the materials through the Artifact Availability Evaluation process. This submission is voluntary but encouraged and will not influence the final decision regarding paper acceptance. Papers that go through the Artifact Availability Evaluation process successfully and are made available in the ACM Digital Library will receive a badge printed on the papers themselves.

**IMPORTANT UPDATE ON ACM'S OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING MODEL FOR 2027 ACM CONFERENCES**

All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, are 100% Open Access. Authors have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With ~3,000 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 76%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Please keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.

To support authors and institutions as they continue to adapt to ACM's Open Access publishing model, the ACM Council has approved subsidized APC rates for calendar year 2027, allowing more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:
- $500 APC for ACM/SIG members
- $750 for non-members

This represents a 29% discount off current APC list pricing, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period.

This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2027.