IEEE PerCom, now in its 24th year, will be held in Pisa, Italy in March 2026 as an in-person physical event.

PerCom is the premier annual scholarly venue in pervasive computing and communications. Pervasive computing is at the forefront of mobile systems research, and has found its way into many commercial applications due to tremendous advances in a broad spectrum of technologies and topics such as wireless networking, mobile and distributed computing, sensor systems, ambient intelligence, and smart devices.

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## Scope

PerCom 2026 solicits research contributions in all areas pertinent to pervasive computing and communications, especially those that cross traditional research boundaries. In particular, PerCom targets contributions in:

- Advances in pervasive systems and infrastructures: middleware systems and services; data engineering for pervasive computing; cloud, fog and edge computing; integrations of smartphones in pervasive experiences; applications of device-to-device coordination.
- Theories, models, and algorithms: context modeling & reasoning; adaptive computing; activity & emotion recognition; programming paradigms; applied deep/federated/decentralized machine learning; causal learning; cognitive computing; complex networks; spatio-temporal modeling.
- Domain-specific challenges and novel applications: urban/mobile crowdsensing & intelligence; PerCom for healthcare and well-being; cyber-physical systems; PerCom for space applications, smart homes and virtual assistants; mixed reality; sports analytics; crime prevention; pervasive nowcasting; urban robotics; pervasive AR/VR; smart vehicles; disaster sensing and management.
- Intersections of PerCom with: IoT and sensor systems; Large Language Models; opportunistic networks; pervasive data science; cyber-physical systems; 3D networks.
- Enablers for PerCom instrumentation: security, privacy and trust in Pervasive Computing; ethical aspects of Pervasive Computing.
- New techniques for user-level concerns: participatory and social sensing; fairness and ethics; user interface, interaction, and persuasion; online and offline social networking; human-machine collaboration.
- Technological innovations: architectures, protocols, and technologies for pervasive communications; energy-harvesting, self-powered, or battery-less systems; mobile and wearable systems; smart devices and environments; positioning, navigation, timing, and tracking technologies; device-free human sensing.

Contributions can be analytical, empirical, technological, methodological, or a combination thereof. Papers reporting strong systems engineering contributions backed by solid and appropriate evaluations are strongly encouraged.

Contributions should be novel (those presenting only minor improvements over the state of the art will not be considered), should demonstrate a significant impact (i.e., they should address an outstanding problem), and should be rigorous.

Note that the impact of the contributions should be demonstrated in the context of pervasive computing and communications applications.

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## Important dates

- Paper registration in EDAS: September 12, 2025
- Submission via EDAS: September 19, 2025
- 1st stage notification: November 28, 2025
- Rebuttal submission: December 5, 2025
- Notification: December 22, 2025
- Camera Ready: February 2, 2026

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## Best paper award and editorial follow-up

The best paper will receive the prestigious Mark Weiser Best Paper Award.

Selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions for a special issue of the Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal.

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## Submission details

Paper submission must be done for the main conference and all associated events via EDAS. If you do not have an EDAS account, please, register first (it’s free). The direct submission link for PerCom 2026 can be found on the conference website.

PerCom 2026 will follow a double-blind review process. Authors are expected to make a good-faith effort to anonymize their submissions. In particular, as in previous PerCom editions, publishing pre-prints of your submitted papers in online archives (e.g., arXiv) prior to submission does NOT disqualify the paper from consideration at PerCom. Moreover, we instruct reviewers NOT to go searching for pre-prints of submitted papers.

Submitted papers must be unpublished and not considered elsewhere for publication. Also, they must show a significant relevance to pervasive computing and communications. Submitted papers will undergo a rigorous review process handled by the Technical Program Committee. Only electronic submissions in PDF format will be considered.

The IEEE LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates, as well as formatting instructions, can be found on the conference website. Papers must be at most 9 pages of technical content (10pt font, 2-column format), including text, figures, and tables, and up to 1 additional page for references only, no appendices.

PerCom 2026 introduces a rebuttal phase to further improve the quality of the review process. Authors are offered the opportunity to respond to the initial reviews. Particularly, they are encouraged to briefly clarify points, explain misunderstandings, etc.

PerCom would not be PerCom without its community. For this reason, we are looking for ways to strengthen the community and encourage meaningful interactions. To this end, all accepted papers must be presented in person by one of the authors, in addition to having an associated full registration. Failure to comply with this requirement will result in the exclusion of the paper from the final proceedings and from the IEEE Digital Library, and the paper will not be eligible for the Best Paper Award.

We strongly advise authors of submitted papers to be prepared to apply for their visa (if required for entry into Italy) as soon as their paper is accepted.

Accepted papers will be published in IEEE Xplore. All accepted papers will be invited to submit an artifact abstract providing the code, data, results, etc. associated with the contribution.

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## TPC Chair and Vice Chairs

Stephan Sigg
Aalto University, Finland

Qi Han
Colorado School of Mines, US

Gabriele Civitarese
University of Milan, Italy

Sandip Chakraborty
IIT Kharagpur, India

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## General Chairs

Chiara Boldrini
IIT-CNR, Italy

Amy L. Murphy
FBK, Italy