Call for Papers: ICAPS 2026

The International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling ICAPS is the premier forum for new research results on the theory and applications of planning and scheduling technology. The 36th edition of the ICAPS conference series will be held in Dublin, Ireland, from June 27 to July 2, 2026.

In addition to the main track, ICAPS-26 will feature four special tracks. Each track is chaired by two prominent researchers in the field. Specialised review criteria will be applied as appropriate and papers will be assigned reviewers with specialised knowledge in the appropriate area:

  • Applications of Planning & Scheduling: Jeremy Frank (NASA, USA), Neil Yorke-Smith (TU Delft, Netherlands)
  • Human-aware Planning & Scheduling: William Yeoh (Washington University in St Louis, USA), Reuth Mirsky (Tufts, USA)
  • Learning for Planning & Scheduling: Blai Bonet (Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela), Akshat Kumar (Singapore Management University, Singapore)
  • Planning & Scheduling in Robotics: Federico Pecora (Amazon Robotics, USA), Alan Fern (Oregon State University, USA)

The following call and submission instructions pertain to papers submitted to the main track and all special tracks. Specific information about each special track and specific criteria can be found on the Special Tracks Page.

Scope

ICAPS-26 welcomes paper submissions on all aspects of automated planning and scheduling. Planning and scheduling are to be interpreted broadly, to encompass a variety of decision-making and optimization problems involving action selection and timing. This includes domain modeling, plan and schedule synthesis, execution and monitoring, failure diagnosis, model repair, and associated learning, representation, and reasoning problems. ICAPS welcomes work on both deterministic and stochastic sequential decision-making, both with and without full observability, and both with and without factored state representations.

Topics in scope for the main track include (but are definitely not limited to):

  • Knowledge Engineering for planning: Reasoning about actions, Reasoning about knowledge and belief;
  • Classical (fully-observable, deterministic) planning, Theoretical foundations of planning, Model-based reasoning;
  • Temporal planning, Mixed discrete/continuous planning, Optimisation of spatio-temporal systems;
  • Planning under uncertainty, Sequential decision making, Planning with large language models, Planning with MDPs or POMDPs, Fully observable non-deterministic planning, Planning with sensing, Representation of uncertainty;
  • Activity and plan recognition, Plan execution and monitoring, Re-planning and plan repair;
  • Scheduling, Including Scheduling Under Uncertainty and Routing;
  • Planning with hierarchical representations;
  • Planning with incomplete models, Real-time planning, Distributed and multi-agent planning, Generalised planning;
  • Search methods for planning and scheduling, SAT, SMT and CP, Local search and evolutionary programming, Sub-modular and gradient-free optimisation, Mathematical programming, Infinite-horizon optimal control problems, Model checking for trust, safety and robustness;
  • Motion and path planning, Task and motion planning, Planning for hybrid systems

Contributions are welcome in each of the following categories:

  • Theoretical papers, which broaden or improve the set of analytical tools used to study planning and scheduling problems and algorithms. Examples include complexity results, expressiveness and new theoretical frameworks.
  • Algorithmic papers, which describe novel perspectives and substantial (qualitative or quantitative) improvements for solving planning and scheduling problems. Examples include new optimisations or specialisations of existing algorithms, new propagators, new decomposition approaches etc.
  • Modelling papers, which describe new representations of planning and scheduling problems and their solutions. Examples include new mathematical frameworks for existing problems, original descriptions of emerging problems and refinements of existing frameworks for knowledge representation of actions, goals, states, or other rigorously defined concepts.
  • Position papers, which contribute thoughtful critiques or bold new perspectives of the field. Examples include meta-analysis of research trends, descriptions of new challenge problems suitable for planning and scheduling, historical perspectives and analysis of the field and technical discussions of various implementation techniques.
  • Tools papers, which describe systems that are of use and of interest to the planning and scheduling community, and which are built using novel algorithmic and engineering techniques. Examples include: integrated planning systems, model checkers and synthesis tools, libraries to construct, manage and transform representations of planning and scheduling problems, applications for visualising, benchmarking and comparing planners or other types of tools, etc.

Papers that do not address problems related to automated planning or scheduling will be rejected without review. Where the relationship of the paper to planning and scheduling is not immediately obvious, authors should make this clear in the abstract and introduction of their paper.

Key Dates

The reference timezone for all deadlines is UTC-12. That is, the deadline has not passed as long as there is still time anywhere in the world.

  • Abstract submission deadline: 2nd December 2025
  • Paper submission deadline: 8th December 2025
  • Author response period: 2nd-4th Feb 2026
  • Author notification: 20th February 2026

Author Guidelines

We welcome submissions of both long (8 pages plus additional page(s) for references) and short (4 pages plus additional page(s) for references) papers. Whether the paper is long or short must be indicated at submission time. All papers submitted to ICAPS-26 must be in AAAI Format (see below).

Over-length papers will be rejected without review. A paper is over-length whenever content other than the references and the optional ethical impacts statement appears on page 9 (resp. Page 5) of long (resp. short) papers.

All papers that satisfy length and formatting requirements will be reviewed against standard criteria such as relevance, originality, significance, clarity, and soundness. Submissions are expected to meet the high standards of publication expected by ICAPS. Please refer to the reviewing guidelines for more details.

All accepted papers will be published in the proceedings and presented at the conference in either oral and/or poster format.

Papers submitted to ICAPS-26 may not be submitted to other conferences or journals during the ICAPS-26 review period, nor may they be already under review, accepted, or published in other conferences or journals. Authors of previously-published work wishing to present at ICAPS are encouraged to submit to the Previously-published Papers Track.

The format of ICAPS-26 will be in-person. As such, we expect at least one author of each accepted paper to register for the conference and present their work in person, unless exceptional circumstances prevent this. In the event of exceptional circumstances that prevent all authors of a paper from attending the conference, authors should contact the Program Chairs as soon as possible.

Submission Instructions

All submissions will be made electronically via EasyChair (link to be posted here shortly). Submitted papers must be anonymous for double-blind reviewing, must adhere to the page limits of the relevant submission type (long or short), and must follow the author kit instructions for formatting. We use the AAAI 2026 author kit that can be found following this link.

Authors can submit supplementary material (videos, technical proofs, additional experimental results) in addition to the PDF paper they submit. Please ensure the supporting material is anonymised unless stated otherwise for specific submission types. Papers should be self-contained; reviewers are encouraged but not obligated to consider supporting material in their decisions, with the exception of tools papers.

Failure to comply with the submission instructions above will result in desk rejection.

ICAPS-26 will follow a single round review process with an author feedback period providing authors the opportunity to respond to the reviews of their paper. During this period the authors will have the opportunity to provide a fixed-length response to the reviewers, but will not be permitted to include links to external materials or present additional results.

Double-blind requirements

Double-blind requirements are satisfied whenever authors omit their names and institutions, refer to prior work by themselves or others in the third person, and ensure that the acknowledgement notices or ethics statements do not include information that may identify them. We discourage authors from posting their manuscripts on Arxiv.org or other similar repositories from two weeks before the submission deadline until the author notification deadline to avoid de-anonymizing the paper to potential reviewers.

Ethical / Societal Impact

Authors are encouraged to include a statement of the potential broader impact of their work, including its ethical aspects and future societal consequences. This statement can be included in either the main body pages or the reference page. Whenever such a statement is not included in the paper, but the reviewers deem that such a statement is necessary, the authors will be asked to provide one during the author response period for review. The statement will be taken into consideration as part of the reviewing process. If the paper is accepted, the statement provided will need to be incorporated into the camera-ready version.

Best Paper Awards and Journal Fast Track

Following the ICAPS tradition, we will award the best paper and best student paper. These papers may also receive an invitation to submit an extended version to a top AI journal, such as the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) or the Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ).

Policies

  1. By submitting or reviewing work at ICAPS-26, you agree to be bound by the ICAPS code of conduct and by the ICAPS COI policy.
  2. Authors and reviewers are expected to follow the AAAI-26 policies regarding use of AI-generated work: papers and reviews must be human-written but AI tools may be used to polish the author-written text.
  3. Papers that violate our submission or formatting rules may be rejected without review.

For inquiries contact: icaps26pcchairs@gmail.com

ICAPS 2026 Program Chairs

  • Amanda Coles, Kings College London, UK
  • Wheeler Ruml, University of New Hampshire, USA
  • Sandhya Saisubramanian, Oregon State University, USA

ICAPS 2026 Conference Chairs

  • Adi Botea, Eaton, Ireland
  • Alfonso Emilio Gerevini, University of Brescia, Italy