Call for Doctoral Symposium Papers

The annual ACM/IFIP Middleware conference will include a doctoral symposium, to which all PhD students working on the topics of the Middleware conference are invited to apply. The doctoral symposium will be held prior to the main conference.


The Middleware doctoral symposium is a welcoming and supportive environment allowing all PhD students to receive feedback, discuss their work, and prepare to get the most out of their participation to the main conference.


All participating students will be offered the opportunity to engage with their peers, as well as with senior academic and industrial members of the Middleware community. This will include the feedback of panel members on the day of the symposium and individual meetings with a personal mentor during the conference.


The symposium is open to PhD students at any stage of their studies. Applicants will be divided into two groups:

  • Planners: students at an early-stage of their thesis who are focused on crafting their research proposal and completing background research.
  • Finishers: students closer to finishing their thesis or dissertation and thinking about how to present their research, its results, and its impact.

All PhD students carrying out research on middleware topics are invited to submit a position paper to the doctoral symposium. Papers will be peer-reviewed by the symposium’s committee of selected mentors. The criteria for accepting papers includes the extent of the contribution of the work to the field, the originality of the problem, and the overall quality of the position paper. Position papers should fit within the topics of the Middleware 2019 main conference Call for Papers.


Position papers are limited to 2 pages (for students in the planner category) or 4 pages (for students in the Finishers category). Submissions must use the same format as for research papers (ACM SIGPLAN 9pt or 10pt). The suggested content is detailed on the Middleware 2019 website. Contributions to the Middleware 2019 PhD Workshop will appear in a proceedings that supplements the main conference proceedings.


Accepted position paper will lead to a presentation during the doctoral symposium, which may require the preparation of a poster for the symposium and for the main conference.

Important Dates

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Paper Submission September 27, 2019
October 4, 2019 (extended)
Acceptance Notification October 14, 2019
Camera Ready October 18, 2019

All deadline times are 23:59 anywhere on earth


Submissions will be handled through HotCRP: https://middleware19ds.hotcrp.com

Submission Guidelines

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The submissions should follow the following guidelines for content and presentation:

  • Author name: the only author should be the PhD student (other contributors, e.g., the PhD student’s advisor(s), can be acknowledged in a separate section at the end)
  • Author affiliation.
  • Abstract (maximum of 100 words).
  • Clear statement of the identified research problem(s) and the context in which the problem(s) will be addressed.
  • Summary (with appropriate references) of the state-of-the-art related to the identified problem(s) along with a clear restatement of the “gap” relative to the research problem(s).
  • Statement explaining the approach and results, according to PhD stage:
    • Planners: state the intended approach including a summary of work accomplished to date (if any).
    • Finishers: describe the research approach and results, including appropriate citations to any published portions.
  • Description of evaluation.
    • Planners: describe the evaluation plan including intended metrics (quantitative and/or qualitative).
    • Finishers: give a clear description of the evaluation, with metrics tied to the originally stated research goals.
  • Conclusion: includes a statement of the real or potential impact(s) of solving the identified research problem(s). Finishers especially should include a brief conjecture about future work that builds on the PhD research.
  • Acknowledgements that properly recognize others’ contributions to the work (supervisor(s), other graduate students, funding sources, etc.).

Student Travel Grants

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Doctoral students that submit their work to this symposium are strongly encouraged to apply for student travel grants to attend Middleware 2019. Students participating in the doctoral symposium will be given priority for the travel grants.

Doctoral Symposium Chairs

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  • Faisal Nawab, University of California Santa Cruz, USA
  • Etienne Riviere, UCLouvain, Belgium

Contact the chairs at middleware19dw@uclouvain.be

Gold Level Sponsor

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Silver Level Sponsors

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Sponsors

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In cooperation with

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