The 34th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS2026) will be hosted in University College Dublin and supported by the Rinn AI Centre. The conference will take place in University College Dublin (UCD) from 15-16 October 2026. This year AICS2026 is an Associated Presidency Event as part of Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026 and will be held in parallel with the AI in Science Summit (AIS2026) also running in UCD. There will be a special Nectar Track poster session highlighting the best Irish AI and Cognitive Science research run in parallel with AIS2026. Alignment with AIS2026 requires a slightly accelerated review process.

With regular conferences dating back to 1988, the AICS has served as the premier platform for researchers in Ireland working in Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, and their applications. This year, we warmly invite and strongly encourage submissions from researchers worldwide, including those based outside of Ireland, to foster broader collaboration and knowledge exchange.


Submissions

The Program Committee of AICS2026 invites both technical and experiential submissions in the broad areas of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Areas of interest include, but are not restricted to:

Technical Submissions:

- Machine Learning (supervised/semi-supervised/unsupervised learning, meta-learning, ensemble learning etc.)
- Cognitive Science (Decision making, perception, concept combination, creative cognition etc.)
- Deep Learning (Network architectures, deep generative models, graph neural networks, foundation models etc.)
- Agents (agentic methods, protocols, evaluations etc.)
- Datasets (Novel datasets, benchmarks, dataset audits, dataset design etc.)
- AI Ethics (Fairness, interpretability, transparency, explainability, environmental impact of AI etc.)
- Machine Learning Testing (Safety, evaluation metrics, robustness etc.)
- Learning Theory (Optimisation, Bayesian Methods, Game Theory, Complexity Analysis etc.)
- Semantic Web (Knowledge Graphs, Social Network Analysis etc.)
- Applications (Computer Vision, speech/audio processing, natural language processing, ML for medicine, recommender systems etc.)

Application-focused Submissions:

- Applications of AI (Examples and experiences of using AI to solve real-world challenges)
- AI in Practice (Case studies detailing the deployment, integration, and operationalisation of AI systems).
- Responsible and Ethical AI Deployment (fairness, transparency, accountability, and compliance)
- AI for Social Good (addressing societal challenges, including low-resource settings, inclusion)
- Scalable and Sustainable AI Solutions (scalable, energy-efficient, and maintainable in production)
- AI in Science (AI techniques designed to support the scientific process or to AI for specific scientific fields)

We invite three types of submissions:

- Full Paper Track: Full paper submissions should consist of original contributions (describing either fundamental research, interesting applications, in-use experiences, or reviews of the field) not published in other forums. Papers should be 6 to 12 pages in length (including references) in CCIS format (single column). Accepted submissions will appear in conference proceedings, and authors will be invited to oral or poster presentations.
- Student Track: This track is designed to facilitate students who have recently completed a Bachelor’s or Master’s program. Student track submissions should consist of original contributions (describing either basic research or interesting applications), and the first author must be a student. Papers should be 6 to 12 pages in length (including references) in CCIS format (single column). Accepted submissions will typically appear in the conference proceedings, though some may be included in the full-paper track. Typically authors of this track will be invited to give a poster presentation.
- NECTAR Track: NECTAR track submissions should describe significant results previously published or disseminated no earlier than 2024 at a prestigious international conference or journal. Accepted submissions will be included in online proceedings as a single-page abstract. Authors will be invited to present their work as part of the poster session run in parallel with AIS2026 and a selection will also be invited for oral presentation at AICS.


Publication and Instructions for Authors

All accepted submissions will be presented at the conference, either orally or as posters, and included in the online conference proceedings. At least one author of each submission will be required to register for and attend the conference. Details of the paper submission system will be shared shortly.

Full Track and Student Track papers must be submitted in CCIS format (single-column proceedings) for double-blind review and therefore appropriately anonymised.

Nectar track submissions should also be in CCIS format (single-column proceedings) and contain a single-page abstract and full bibliographic details of the original submission, including a link to an open-access version of the article. Nectar Track submissions should not be anonymised.


Important Dates

- Submission date: 5th Sept 2026
- Acceptance notification: 26 Sept 2026
- Deadline for final papers: 23rd Oct 2026 (after AICS26)


General co-Chairs

- Courtney Ford (University College Dublin)
- Giulio Gabrieli (Technological University Dublin)
- Brian Mac Namee (University College Dublin)