Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

2025

Information on Paper Submissions

Information on Paper Submissions

Please Note:

2-page Extended Abstract Track (Traditional)

  • Please use one of these templates, and follow the style requirements described therein:
  • Submissions consist of 2-page Extended Abstracts, submitted via the OpenReview platform.
  • At least one author per submission must register as a reviewer.
  • Abstracts undergo light peer review. The review procedure will be comparable to earlier CCNs, but the number of reviewers per paper will be reduced from previous years. We expect that all submissions that are within scope and meet scientific standards will be accepted for posters, if submissions are within capacity (we have 800 poster slots). The reviews will be used to select 2-pagers for Contributed Talks. However, if authors fail to contribute the required reviews, eligibility for Contributed Talks is lost (see below).
  • Reviewers will be asked during review how certain they are of their judgement, and their level of expertise in the particular subfield of this paper. 
  • Accepted abstracts: 
    • Present their work as posters. 
    • May be selected for a Contributed Talk.
    • Do not receive a DOI assignment.
    • Have reviews that are not made public.
  • Rejected abstracts:
    • Will not be publicly visible.
  • This track largely maintains CCN's established approach to scientific communication.

8-Page Conference Paper Track (New)

  • Please use one of these templates, and follow the style requirements described therein:
  • Submissions consist of 8-page conference proceedings, submitted via the OpenReview platform.
  • At least one author per submission must register as a reviewer.
  • Papers undergo rigorous peer review and will have a rebuttal period during which authors and reviewers discuss, overseen by area chairs and senior area chairs. If authors fail to contribute the required reviews, eligibility for Contributed Talks is lost and the CCN-P paper is desk rejected (see below).
  • Reviewers will be asked during review how certain they are of their judgement, and their level of expertise in the particular subfield of this paper. 
  • Acceptance rate targets approximately 25%, informed by reviewer ratings.
  • Accepted papers:
    • Receive a publication in CCN Proceedings (CCN-P) with DOI assignment.
    • Present their work as posters.
    • May be selected for a Contributed Talk
    • Have reviews that will be made public on OpenReview
  • Rejected papers:
    • Will be converted to a regular poster, if within scope and if the authors submit a 2-page abstract.
    • These papers may also be selected for Contributed Talks, for which the reviews of the 8-pager process will be used. 
    • The original 8-pager submission will not be publicly visible.

Further paper submission rules

The use of LLMs is allowed as a general-purpose assist tool. Authors and reviewers  take full responsibility for the content written under their name, including any content generated by LLMs and any content that could be construed as plagiarism or scientific misconduct (e.g., fabrication of facts). LLMs are not eligible for authorship.

Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to versions that have been previously published, accepted for publication, or that have been submitted in parallel to this or other conferences or journals, are not allowed and violate our dual submission policy. However, papers that cite previous related work by the authors and papers that have appeared on non-peer reviewed websites (like arXiv) or that have been presented at workshops (i.e., venues that do not have publication proceedings) do not violate the policy. 

Authors have the right to withdraw papers from consideration at any time until paper acceptance notification. Upon withdrawal, the submission will be deleted from OpenReview.

Reviewers 2-pagers

One author from each submission will be added to the pool of eligible reviewers (so that there are at least as many eligible reviewers as submissions). Any reviewer will review at most 4-5 papers. 

Authors in this category that fail to finish reviews by the author response stage will not be considered for a Contributed Talk. Authors are exempt from the reviewing requirement if they are serving as an AC, SAC, or are a CCN 2025 committee member. 

Reviewers 8-pagers

One author from each submission will be added to the pool of eligible reviewers (so that there are at least as many eligible reviewers as submissions). Any reviewer will review at most 4-5 papers. You are an eligible reviewer if you have received a PhD.

Authors in this category who fail to finish reviews by the author response stage may have their paper submissions desk-rejected and may not be considered for Contributed Talk when converted to the 2-pager track. Authors are exempt from the reviewing requirement if they are serving as an AC, SAC, or are a CCN 2025 committee member.

Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Two-track submission system

CCN 2025 will offer two submission tracks: 2-page Extended Abstracts (“2-pagers”) and 8-page Full Conference Papers (“8-pagers”). OpenReview will serve as the platform for reviewing both submission types. 

2-pagers that align with the conference scope will generally be accepted, up to a maximum capacity of 800 posters. Accepted 2-pagers will be accessible through OpenReview. See information on paper submissions for more details.

8-pagers will undergo competitive selection. Accepted papers will be published in the CCN Proceedings (CCN-P) with DOI assignment on OpenReview. Authors of rejected 8-pagers will have the option to submit a 2-pager instead during the "camera-ready" phase of the process, again up to a maximum capacity of 800 posters. Contributed talks will be selected from both accepted 8-pagers and 2-pagers, including the 8-pagers rerouted to 2-pagers. See information on paper submissions for more details.

We will host two Community Meetings to discuss the submission tracks and answer any questions authors might have. The meetings will be held via Zoom at 21:00 CET on Monday 18th November and 10:00 CET on Thursday 21st November.  Please click the link to register for the meeting you would like to attend.

 

Figure 1. Submission Pathways for CCN 2025. The conference now offers two parallel tracks for submissions. The traditional extended abstract track (right) accepts 2-page submissions that meet scope and quality requirements for poster presentation, and are eligible for oral presentation selection. The new conference proceedings track (left) accepts 8-page submissions and implements a competitive acceptance rate, with accepted papers published with DOI in CCN Proceedings (CCN-P). All accepted papers in both tracks receive a poster presentation and are eligible for Contributed Talk selection. Submissions rejected by the CCN-P track are rerouted to the 2-page submission track for an acceptance decision (with another chance for oral presentation). 

Background on CCN's Conference Proceedings track

The introduction of a conference proceedings track is a response to our research community's needs. Traditional academic journals, while important for feedback and quality control, also introduce challenges including high costs and often lengthy publication timelines. While journals like PLoS Computational Biology, Cognitive Science, and eLife already offer some relief with lower costs of publishing and gold open access, machine learning conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, and ICML also demonstrate how conference proceedings with high peer review standards can foster rapid, affordable, and high-quality scientific communication.

CCN covers research at the intersection of AI, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science. This convergence of fields presents a unique challenge and an opportunity to adopt publishing formats that resonate with researchers across these domains. We anticipate that the introduction of a long-form conference proceedings track, a format that has proven successful in the computer science and cognitive science communities, will benefit a substantial part of the researchers working at the intersection of these diverse fields. There is a lot of excitement and energy in the community, and we believe this new format will help us to, together, reach a higher standard of reviewing and editorial decisions, which will empower and democratize the CCN community.

In making this change, we've been careful to preserve what already works well. The traditional poster track, with its 2-page abstracts, remains unchanged, except that we will not be assigning DOIs to them. This ensures that our existing community members continue to have the same opportunities for presentation and scientific exchange that have made CCN a valuable venue. The new proceedings track, therefore, complements but does not replace our established format, thereby enriching the conference's ability to serve our evolving research community.

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience