By reviewing the papers, you agree that the ICANN 2026 review process is confidential. Specifically, you agree not to use ideas and results from submitted papers in your work, research or grant proposals, unless and until that material appears in other publicly available formats, such as a technical report or as a published work. You also agree not to distribute submitted papers or the ideas in them to anyone unless approved by the Program Chairs.
Double blind reviewing
The authors do not know the identity of the reviewers; this also holds for authors who are on the program committee. In addition, the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors. Note, however, that the Program Chairs do know the authors’ identities. This helps avoid accidental conflicts of interest or other forms of bias.
Of course, double blind reviewing is not perfect: by searching the Internet, a reviewer may discover (or think he/she may have discovered) the identity of an author. We encourage you not to actively attempt to discover the identities of the authors. If you have good reason to suspect that a paper has been published in the past, you can go and search on the Internet, but we ask that you first completely read the paper. Also, based on the experience of other double-blind conferences, we caution reviewers that the assumed authors may not be the actual authors; multiple independent inventions are common and different groups build on each others’ work.
If you believe that you have discovered the identity of the author, please let us know in the “Confidential Comments to Program Committee” in your review. Please do not reject papers only because they were not properly anonymised.
Formatting issues
We ask that you double-check that your papers have followed the submission guidelines with respect to length (i.e. they are at most 12 pages), format, and anonymity. Please let us know in the “Confidential Comments to Program Committee” if you find serious formatting issues or anonymity problems with a submitted paper.
Previously published work
Where possible, reviewers should identify submissions that are very similar (or identical) to versions that have been previously published, or that have been submitted in parallel to other conferences. Program Chairs will also use a plagiarism check software.
Writing your reviews: Best reviewing practices
Importantly, reviewer comments should be detailed, specific and polite, avoiding vague complaints and providing appropriate citations if authors are unaware of relevant work. As you write a review, think of the types of reviews that you like to get for your papers. Even negative reviews can be polite and constructive! Remember that you are assessing the paper’s quality as a scientific contribution to the field.
Reviewers should NOT assume that they have received an unbiased sample of papers, nor should they adjust their scores to achieve an artificial balance of high and low scores. Scores should reflect absolute judgments of the contributions made by each paper.
Writing your reviews: Review content
The high quality of ICANN 2026 depends on having a complete set of reviews for each paper. Reviewer scores and comments provide the primary input used by the Area and Program Chairs to judge the quality of submitted papers. Far more than any other factor, reviewers determine the scientific content of the conference. However, we also stress that short superficial reviews that venture uninformed opinions about a paper are damaging. They may result in the rejection of a high quality paper that the reviewer simply failed to understand or acceptance of a substandard paper. Please take the time to fully assess the paper.
Reviewer comments have two purposes: to provide feedback to authors and to provide input to the Area and Program Chairs. Reviewer comments to authors whose papers are rejected will help them understand how ICANN 2026 papers are rated and how they might improve their submissions in the future. Reviewers’ comments to authors whose papers are accepted will help them improve the paper for the final conference proceedings. Reviewers’ comments to the Program Chairs are also considered when accept/reject decisions are made. Your comments are seen by the Area and Program Chairs and the other reviewers.
ICANN 2026 Policy in regards to LLM use by reviewers
ICANN 2026 permits reviewers to use large language models (LLMs) as assistive tools—for example, to help with understanding technical material, clarifying background, or improving the clarity and grammar of their written reviews—provided that confidentiality is strictly preserved and human judgment remains central. Reviewers must not delegate substantive evaluation, scientific judgment, or decision-making to LLMs, nor submit confidential manuscript content to public or non-secure services. Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, fairness, and integrity of their reviews, regardless of any tool used. This policy aims to support reviewer effectiveness while upholding the core principles of peer review: confidentiality, accountability, and expert human assessment.
Conflicts of interest
In reviewing, you may accidentally discover the identity of the authors. If this happens, please state it in the “Confidential Comments to Program Committee” section.