Topics of Interest
FORMATS 2026 invites contributions on all aspects of data formats and format-dependent operational considerations. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Table formats design and evolution, new data types support, workload-aware maintenance, intelligent caching, adaptive indexing, interoperability across engines, and logical vs. physical independence.
- File formats design and evolution, metadata organization, columnar or rowgroup layouts, workload-specific layouts, and reconfigurability.
- Storage systems optimized for file operations, computation pushdowns, and utilization of emerging hardware.
- New data layouts tailored for in-memory and storage operations.
- Novel data encodings that improve compression ratios and operational efficiency.
- Data access patterns and optimizations for point lookups, range scans, sequential, and random access.
- I/O efficiency for analytics, transactional and vector databases, ML pipelines, and adjacent use cases.
- Practical considerations for scalability and deployment in large-scale and cloud environments.
Submission Guidelines
- Paper format: Use the 2-column ACM Proceedings format (LaTeX, Word, Overleaf) adopted by SIGMOD '26.
- Paper length: Limit submissions to 3 pages excluding references. Accepted papers receive 4 pages, excluding references.
- Review model: Single-anonymous; include author names and affiliations.
- Conflicts of interest: Declare conflicts per the SIGMOD '26 guidelines.
- Submission website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/FORMATS2026
Please ensure submissions clearly articulate innovations, evaluation methodology, and implications for future systems.
Important Dates
- Submission deadline: March 08, 2026 (AoE).
- Notification: March 23, 2026.
- Camera-ready deadline: To be announced soon.
- Workshop date: Sunday, May 31, 2026.