Language Resources and Evaluation invites submissions to a Special Issue on Language Technologies for Health
Submission deadline: 7 December 2026
Full call for papers: https://www.aim-health.ufscar.br/lre_special_issue.html

Special Issue on Language Resources and Evaluation for Healthcare

Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP), Speech Technologies, and Large Language Models (LLMs) have transformed the development of language-based applications in healthcare. From the analysis of electronic health records and patient-generated content to conversational agents, decision-support systems, and digital health applications, language technologies are increasingly being deployed in real-world healthcare settings.

The success of these technologies, however, depends critically on the availability of high-quality language resources and rigorous evaluation methodologies. Healthcare applications pose unique challenges, including specialized terminology, multilinguality, data scarcity, privacy constraints, annotation complexity, reproducibility, and the need for trustworthy and explainable systems. As language technologies continue to evolve, there is a growing need for resources, benchmarks, evaluation frameworks, and methodological studies that support reliable and responsible research and development in this domain.

This Special Issue aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of language resources, evaluation, and healthcare. The initiative builds on discussions from the First Workshop on Language Technologies for Health (Lang4Health) and welcomes contributions from the broader international community.

We invite original contributions addressing the creation, annotation, documentation, dissemination, evaluation, and application of language resources for healthcare-related language and speech technologies. Extended versions of papers presented at Lang4Health are welcome, provided they contain substantial new material. New submissions are equally encouraged.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Data in health domain
Dataset/Corpus construction and availability;
Dataset/Corpus annotation;
Anonymization and de-identification;
Augment and synthetic data generation.
Language technologies in health domain
Interaction and conversational agents (e.g. chatbots);
Information extraction and information retrieval;
Named Entity Recognition;
Summarization;
Question Answering;
Personalization;
Speech processing;
NLP-supported diagnosis;
Accessibility and simplification of information;
Language support for digital phenotyping.

Submissions involving any language are welcome. We particularly encourage contributions addressing Portuguese, Galician, and other under-resourced languages.

Manuscripts must present original and unpublished research and will undergo the standard peer-review process of the Language Resources and Evaluation journal.
Submission information

Submissions must present original and unpublished research that is not under consideration elsewhere. We welcome substantial contributions that advance the development, evaluation, documentation, dissemination, or application of language resources and evaluation methodologies for healthcare-related language and speech technologies.

Extended versions of papers presented at the First Workshop on Language Technologies for Health (Lang4Health) are welcome, provided that they contain substantial new material beyond the workshop publication. New submissions from the broader research community are equally encouraged.

Contributions may include, but are not limited to, new language resources, resource extensions, annotation methodologies, evaluation frameworks, benchmarking studies, reproducibility analyses, and innovative applications of language resources in healthcare settings.

Manuscripts should be prepared and submitted according to the guidelines of the Language Resources and Evaluationjournal. Detailed submission instructions will be provided upon the launch of the Special Issue.
Review process

All submissions will undergo the standard -blind peer-review process of the Language Resources and Evaluationjournal. Each manuscript will be evaluated by at least two expert reviewers selected by the Guest Editors based on their expertise and the absence of conflicts of interest. Reviewers will assess submissions with respect to scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance to the Special Issue, and potential impact on the field. To support a rigorous and timely review process, authors submitting to the Special Issue may be invited to participate in the reviewer pool and review other submissions within their area of expertise. Reviewer assignments will be managed by the Guest Editors to ensure appropriate expertise and to avoid conflicts of interest. Revised manuscripts may undergo additional rounds of review when necessary.
Guest Editors

Prof. Aline Villavicencio, University of Exeter, UK

Dr. Rodrigo Wilkens, University of Exeter, UK

Prof. Helena Caseli, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil

Dr. Vânia Neris, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil

Contact Information: Lang4health2026@gmail.com