[Newsletter PoDM ] Principles of Data Management, Newsletter 57, January 2026

Thu Jan 8 14:43:17 UTC 2026

Principles of Data Management, Newsletter 57, January 2026
The newsletter on Principles of Data Management from databasetheory.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Job announcement
Call for Papers - ICDT 2027

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JOB ANNOUNCEMENT
* PhD students (or post-docs)
* Graph Databases and Causal Inference 
* LIRIS research lab, Lyon, France
* Link: https://liris.cnrs.fr/angela.bonifati/ERC-AdG-GOY.shtml
* 1-3 years (flexible starting date until June 2026)
* The opening is in the research group of Angela Bonifati (Université Lyon 1, CNRS Liris, Lyon) and does not involve teaching
* Contact: Angela Bonifati (angela.bonifati at liris.cnrs.fr)

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ICDT 2027: 30th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DATABASE THEORY
Lille, France, 6-8 April 2027.

CALL FOR PAPERS

ICDT is a series of international scientific conferences on research of
data management theory (https://databasetheory.org/icdt-pages). Since 2009,
it is annually and jointly held with EDBT (Extending DB Technology).

The 30th edition of ICDT, in 2027, is planned to take place in Lille,
France from 6-8 April 2027.

* Topics of Interest 

  We welcome research papers on every topic related to the principles and
  theory of data management, provided that there is a clear connection to
  foundational aspects. This includes, for example, articles on "classical"
  data management topics such as the following.

  - The theoretical investigation of various aspects underlying data
    management systems (e.g., Indexes, Concurrency and recovery,
    Distributed and parallel databases, Cloud computing, Privacy and
    security, Graph databases, Data streams and sketching, Data-centric
    (business) process management and workflows, Data and knowledge
    integration and exchange, Data provenance, Views, Data warehouses,
    Domain-specific databases - multimedia, scientific, spatial, temporal,
    text data, ...).

  - The design and study of data models and query languages.

  - The development and analysis of algorithms for data management.

  This also includes papers exploring existing or identifying new
  connections between data management and other areas, such as the areas
  of: knowledge representation, semantic web, web services, information
  retrieval and data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence,
  distributed computing, and theoretical computer science.

  In all of the above, a clear emphasis on foundational aspects is
  expected. You may want to check https://dblp.org/db/conf/icdt/index.html
  to get an overview of previous editions of ICDT.

  The Program Committee reserves the right to desk reject a submission when
  it is regarded to be out of scope.

* Submission Cycles and Dates

  ICDT will have two submission cycles for 2027, with deadlines as follows.
  All times are Anywhere on Earth (UTC + 12)

  # ICDT Submission Cycle 1
    - March 3, 2026: Abstract submission
    - March 10, 2026: Paper submission
    - June 1, 2026: Notification

  # ICDT Submission Cycle 2
    - September 3, 2026:: Abstract submission
    - September 10, 2026: Paper submission
    - December 1, 2026: Notification

  Papers rejected in the first submission cycle cannot be submitted to the
  second submission cycle unless explicitly requested by the reviewers.

* Program Committee

  # ICDT 2027 PC Chair

  Stijn Vansummeren, Data Science Institute, Hasselt University

  # ICDT 2027 PC Members

  Andrew McGregor, University of Massachusetts
  Bas Ketsman,	Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  Cristina Feier, technical University of Cluj-Napoca
  Dan Suciu, University of Washington (senior PC member)
  Emanuel Sallinger, TU Wien
  Ester Livshits, Technion
  Florent Capelli, Université d'Artois
  Floris Geerts, University of Antwerp (senior PC member)
  Francesco Silvestri, University of Padova
  Graham Cormode, Oxford University (senior PC member)
  Heba (Aamer) Mohamed, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
  Jonni Virtema, University of Glasgow
  Kuldeep S. Meel, University of Toronto
  Leonid Libkin, RelationalAI and  University of Edinburgh (senior PC member)
  Mahmoud Abo Khamis, Relational AI
  Matthias Niewerth, Bayreuth University
  Matthias Paul Lanzinger, TU Wien
  Paraschos  Koutris, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Qichen Wang, Nanyang Technological University
  Rémi Morvan, 	Université de Lille
  Sara Cohen, Hebrew University
  Sarah Kleest-Meißner, Hasselt University
  Steffen van Bergerem, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  Yufei Tao, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

* Submission Instructions

  All submissions will be electronic via Microsoft CMT.
  Link: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/ICDT2027

  Papers must be written in English and provide sufficient detail to allow
  the program committee to assess their merits. Papers must be submitted as
  PDF documents, using the LIPIcs style
  (http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/publications/lipics/instructions-for-authors).

* Tracks

  1. Regular Research Papers (15 pages, anonymized)

  The results must be unpublished and not submitted for publication
  elsewhere, including the proceedings of other symposia or
  workshops. Papers must be at most 15 pages, excluding
  references. Additional details may be included in a clearly marked
  appendix, which, however, will be read at the discretion of the program
  committee (online appendices are not allowed). Papers not conforming to
  these requirements may be rejected without further consideration.

  2. Database Theory in Action (4 pages, non-anonymized)

  The "Database Theory in Action" track calls for short papers that illustrate
  the value and impact of database theory through its application to other
  domains, or to real-world problems. In particular, papers submitted to this
  track do not need to include novel theoretical contributions. We specifically
  invite papers that demonstrate novel and important connections between
  database theory and neighboring communities, such as Database Systems,
  Operating Systems, Programming Languages, Machine Learning, Artificial
  Intelligence, Knowledge Representation, Distributed Computing, and Industry,
  as well as other scientific disciplines outside of Computer Science.  At the
  discretion of the program committee, there may be invited papers to this track
  as well.

  Papers submitted to this track must be 4 pages + references, and can be based
  on a previously published paper at another venue.  The title of the papers
  submitted to this track must start with "Database Theory in Action:". These
  papers should also include clear pointers to all relevant previous
  publications, websites, tools, repositories, etc.

* Proceedings and participation

  The conference proceedings will appear in the Leibniz International
  Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs) series, based at Schloss
  Dagstuhl. This guarantees that the proceedings will be available online
  and free of charge, while the authors retain the rights over their work.

  At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to register at the
  conference and to present the paper in-person. For rare circumstances
  when unexpectedly no co-author of an accepted paper is able to travel,
  authors are required to contact the PC Chair early after the notification
  to discuss and plan possible alternate presentation options.

* Anonymous Submission

  Since 2024, ICDT has adopted anonymous submission (only for regular track
  papers; submissions for the "database theory in action" track should not
  be anonymous), in line with other leading conferences in the database
  community such as SIGMOD and PODS. The intent of anonymous submission is
  to ensure that the identity of the authors is not presented to the
  reviewers during the review process. Specifically, submitted papers must
  not list authors or affiliations, and must not include acknowledgments to
  funding sources, or other colleagues or collaborators. References to the
  authors' own prior work must not be distinguished from other
  references. Where this is not possible (for instance, when referring to a
  specific system to which the authors have privileged access), anonymized
  citations are permissible. For more background on the motivation for
  anonymous submissions, and the mechanisms to achieve it, please consult
  [Snodgrass, 2007] https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/~rts/pubs/TODS07.pdf

  Simultaneously, the authors may make their submissions available to the
  community via pre-print services such as ArXiv and through talks. We do
  require that work is not labeled as "under submission at ICDT" or
  indicate that it is under review, but otherwise place no restrictions on
  sharing results. This does not conflict with the anonymous submission
  requirement.

* Conflicts of Interest Policy

  All authors of a submission are jointly responsible for entering all and only
  potential conflict-of-interest with the ICDT 2027 PC members. Conflict
  declaration must occur by the abstract submission deadline through the online
  submission platform.

  A paper author has a conflict of interest with a PC member when, and only
  when, one or more of the following conditions holds:

  - The PC member is a co-author of the paper.

  - The PC member has been a co-worker in the same company or university within
    the past two years, or is scheduled to join the same company or university
    in the next one year.

  - The PC member has been a collaborator within the past two years, as
    evidenced by one or more joint publications, shared grant funding, or close
    research relationships, even if those have not yet resulted in common
    publications. Or the PC member has been a frequent collaborator within the
    past five years, as evidenced by five or more joint publications in the last
    five years.

  - The PC member is or was the author's primary thesis advisor, or
    post-doctoral advisor, no matter how long ago.

  - The PC member is a relative or close personal friend of the author.

  Submissions with undeclared conflicts or spurious conflicts will be
  desk-rejected.

* Awards

  An award will be given to the Best Paper. Also, an award will be given to
  the Best Newcomer Paper written by newcomers to the field of database
  theory. The latter award will preferentially be given to a paper written
  only by students; in that case the award will be called Best
  Student-Paper Award.

  The program committee reserves the following rights: not to give any
  award; to split an award among several papers; and to define the notion
  of a newcomer.

  Following a recent decision by the ICDT council, papers authored or
  co-authored by program committee members may be eligible for the best
  paper award, in which case the programme committee will take care to
  follow a selection procedure that avoids any conflicts of interest.
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