Call for Bids: AACL-IJCNLP 2026

The 5th Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 15th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing

The Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (AACL) hereby invites proposals to host the conference in the Asia-Pacific region in November or December of 2026. At this time, we seek preliminary draft proposals from prospective bidders in the Asia-Pacific region. Promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information for the final selection.

The AACL-IJCNLP 2026 Coordinating Committee, made up of representatives of the AACL and representatives from the AFNLP, will select the General Chair and the Program Committee Co-Chairs for the conference. Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will work with the General Chair and the Coordinating Committee to develop a detailed plan and budget.

To facilitate conference organization, bidders may delegate many tasks of their choice to a Professional Conference Organizer and/or to the ACL Office. Handy bid guidelines, including expense and task list templates and additional useful links are provided at: https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Bid_Guidelines

The template for local expenses is available here: http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/ACL-conference-bid-template-CURRENT.xlsx (If it doesn’t download automatically, please right-click and choose “Save Link As…”)

Bid Highlights: Draft proposals include information on the following:

• Estimates of the anticipated number of registrants
• Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., convention center, hotel or university; accommodation; dining options; capability to host the registrants predicted)
• Travel alternatives and international access
• Proposed dates. Religious and local national holidays should be avoided, as much as possible.
• Local arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling; description of any experience the team has had in organizing previous conferences and the number of participants at those conferences)
• Local Computational Linguistics community (the size and impact of local R&D groups on NLP and related disciplines)
• Meeting venues (space for sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos, small meetings and registration)
• Printing of conference booklet
• Computing/wifi/audiovisual: whether there will be desktop/laptop in conference
• Social events and Catering, including breaks, receptions, poster sessions, banquet and entertainment (traditionally, dancing for participants at the banquet)
• Local sponsorships
• Opportunities for co-location with other meetings
• Local expenses estimates spreadsheet (using template provided, link above)

Evaluation: Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (unordered):

• Experience, flexibility, and openmindedness of local arrangements team
• Local Computational Linguistics community support
• Local government and industry support
• Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site
• Suitability of proposed dates
• Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants (space for 600 attendees, 3 rooms of 100–150, 5 rooms for workshops/tutorials)
• Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a range of price categories and close to the conference facilities
• Adequacy of expense projections (estimated registration fees/structures and surplus expectations)
• Geographical balance with regard to ACL, AACL, IJCNLP, EMNLP and COLING meetings in the Asia-Pacific region in the decade prior to 2025 (2011 Chiang Mai, Thailand; 2012 Jeju, Korea and Mumbai, India; 2013 Nagoya, Japan; 2014 Doha, Qatar; 2015 Beijing, China; 2016 Osaka, Japan; 2017 Taipei, ROC; 2018 Melbourne, Australia; 2019 Hong Kong, China; 2020 Suzhou, China; 2021 Bangkok, Thailand; 2022 Gyeongju, Korea; 2023 Singapore and Bali, Indonesia; 2024 Bangkok, Thailand; 2025 Suzhou, China and Bombay, India)

Important Dates:

• July, 2025: Call for bids
• August 15, 2025: Notify intention to submit proposal
• August 25, 2025: Draft proposals due
• Through September 19, 2025: Feedback to bidders
• October 3, 2025: Final bids due
• October 27, 2025: Bid selected

The selected location for AACL-IJCNLP 2026 will be announced at EMNLP 2025 (November 5-9, Suzhou, China https://2025.emnlp.org/). For any queries, please contact Xuanjing Huang, the Coordinating Committee Chair. Please send notifications and draft proposals to:

Xuanjing Huang
Fudan University
xjhuang@fudan.edu.cn

Once we receive the proposal we will acknowledge.