Join Social Justice Ireland for our 2026 Annual Social Policy Conference, to hear from experts on youth orientated policy in Ireland. Scroll to the bottom…

Through its internship opportunities, CIFS provides an opportunity to engage with the world of futures studies while gaining exposure to strategic work

The key is to evade the rigid and hegemonic structures of Western-oriented writing.

CRB'25 scholarship recipient, Peter Füssy's insight on breaking away from a car-oriented imaginary through Radical Children's Literature

The Mpact Transit + Community conference (founded as Rail~Volution) focuses on building transit-oriented communities. We convene a powerful network dedicated to leveraging transit, connected mobility options, supportive land use and development to create better lives and brighter futures for everyone. Learn more at mpactmobility.org/conference

Mirai – future – is ubiquitously written into Tokyo’s cityscape. Yet the promises embedded in future-oriented government initiatives like Health Japan 21, Innovation 25, Society 5.0, and the Sustai...

Dr. Alan Foley moves from an analysis of how educational AI reproduces ableism toward a framework educators and institutions can use to recognize and resist it.

## Overview As we approach 50 years of SIGIR conferences in 2027, it is an opportune moment not only to celebrate the impact of Information Retrieval (IR) research, but also to invest in shaping the next generation of ideas, systems, and communities that will define the field’s future. SIGIR Futures is a new ACM SIGIR program designed to help shape the trajectory of IR research and practice by supporting high-ambition, future-oriented events and grassroots projects proposed and run by community members. SIG support for Futures activities may include financial assistance, mentorship from research leaders, connections within and beyond our community, and publicity for an activity. Potential activities include workshops, challenges and competitions, visionary whitepapers, and other community-driven efforts. ## Initial Call for Proposals Futures will begin with a fixed-deadline Call for Proposals (CFP). Selected activities will take place in 2027, aligning with the 50th anniversary of the SIGIR conference and helping shape the next 50 years of IR. In this inaugural year for Futures, we will prioritize fewer, higher-impact activities. After SIGIR 2027, we will shift to a standing CFP, enabling Futures to continuously surface and support emerging directions in IR. Requests for Futures support for activities in 2027 should be submitted via our online form by the deadline below. * Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2026 (Anywhere on Earth Time Zone) * Notification of decisions: September 30, 2026 * First round of Futures activities: 2027 For this first CFP, Futures activities can happen anywhere in the world at any time during 2027. We welcome proposals for Futures activities at the SIGIR 2027 conference, and other conferences to be held in 2027, including envisioning workshops, challenges and competitions around new and emerging areas, and forward‑looking panels. Authors of selected proposals are required to provide a brief statement on the impact of the activity and how Futures support helped. We will include these in a SIGIR Forum article and/or share highlights at the SIGIR conference business meeting. ## Motivation ACM SIGIR is uniquely positioned to help the research community envision and define the future of IR. This forward-looking perspective is important for many reasons including: * To “sell” IR outside of the SIGIR community as an innovative and exciting discipline that is proactively investing in its future; * To help rally the IR community around some of the most compelling and impactful research problems; * To strengthen connections with researchers in adjacent disciplines pushing the boundaries in related areas (e.g., Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Artificial Intelligence (AI)). For example, by supporting envisioning events with a cross-disciplinary focus, involving organizers and participants from multiple communities, leading to shared research agendas, co-authored publications, cross-institution grant proposals, and so on; * To inspire and to energize the IR community, especially the next generation of IR researchers (early career researchers (ECRs)), to keep the community thriving and bring fresh ideas that challenge established assumptions, and; * To bring new members into the community and keep SIGIR growing, via cross-community collaborations and showcasing our energy and the range of exciting IR-related research opportunities. ## SIGIR Futures Program SIGIR Futures is a new program within ACM SIGIR designed to catalyze ambitious efforts that envision and shape the future of IR research and practice. Relevant activities include those that identify and evangelize compelling IR-related research problems, tackle high-risk/high-reward challenges in IR, and dive deep on specific, future-leaning topics of interest to the IR community (including topics that may only interest a subset of the community – although not so narrow as to be sub-scale, e.g., of interest to a single person or single research group). While the activities Futures will support (either partly or in full) will often be events such as envisioning workshops (e.g., SWIRL itself or SWIRL-like events of different scales) and competitions (e.g., the LiveRAG Challenge, TREC tracks), Futures could also help bring together related initiatives in the IR community and beyond to amplify their impact, or support those working on promising research directions (e.g., emerging from the Perspectives track at the SIGIR conference) to take next steps in building new communities of interest around emerging ideas or themes. Other tracks at the SIGIR conference, or IR venues in general, may also provide a valuable source of future directions and collaboration opportunities that could help inspire Futures proposals. Examples of Futures support include (but are by no means limited to): * Contributing funding to high‑ambition events, such as envisioning workshops or challenges, that chart new directions for IR; * Support from the SIG in raising awareness of an emerging, high‑importance topic with broad relevance to the community; * Assistance in building connections across the IR community around a breakthrough idea poised to shape the field; * Funding or access to collaboration technologies or experiences (digital or physical) that enable engagement among researchers working on a flagship research effort; * Funding for limited travel to bring researchers from different institutions together to brainstorm on a forward‑looking, high‑impact challenge, and/or; * Connections to IR leaders for guidance and advice on refining a promising new direction for the field. ## Selecting Futures Proposals Proposals for Futures support should be submitted via our online form by the deadline posted above Please note that the SIG has limited funds available for financial assistance. Funding requests should be $10k USD or less per proposal, though exceptions may be made for activities of significant community impact. Note that funding is administered under ACM rules and we will likely be unable to support all proposals we receive. Financial support may also be partial and is contingent on feasibility. Beyond financial support, proposers are strongly encouraged to think creatively about other reasonable ways that the SIG could help advance their forward-looking activities and to clearly articulate those requests and their benefits in their proposal. Proposals will be evaluated based on criteria including: (1) alignment with the Futures program aims (to catalyze forward-looking activities that help define the future of IR); (2) the level of ambition; (3) the expected impact on the field of IR, the IR community, and/or emerging areas where IR can play a leading role (and how measurable that impact is); (4) the need for SIG funding in light of other funding options (if any); (5) the feasibility of the activity described in the proposal; (6) SIG budget considerations, and; (7) the opportunity cost for the SIG in supporting this proposal versus putting those resources to other uses. Requests will be reviewed and selected by the Futures chair with SIGIR Executive Committee oversight. We will revise the selection process (e.g., adding a small review panel) as necessary. Proposals that build connections to other disciplines or communities (e.g., co-organizers of activities from recommender systems, HCI, and/or AI) are encouraged, as they help strengthen ties beyond SIGIR. Proposals led by ECRs are also encouraged to support and inspire the next generation of IR talent. Diversity across other dimensions, such as geography, background, sector (e.g., academia, industry, and government), and cross-domain research, is similarly important and will be taken into account. ## Contact For questions or feedback, please contact the SIGIR Futures Chair, **Ryen W. White** at futures_SIGIR@acm.org. Please also reach out if you have suggestions for specific Futures activities as we develop this program for the community.

Amaravati, February 24, 2026: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Joint Executive Officer for Education and Health, A. Sharath, inspected the TTD-run Sri Padmavathi Women’s Polytechnic in Tirupati and stressed the shift toward job-oriented education. He called on teachers to deliver quality training that aligns with TTD's mission, focusing on career guidance, high academic performance, and employment opportunities to secure students' futures. Sharath highlighted the need to build technical expertise alongside soft skills to boost confidence and motivation. He also invited staff feedback on infrastructure gaps to drive improvements.

Coral reef conservation is facing increasing pressure to act boldly in the face of climate-altered futures. This perspective offers five guiding principles—termed Minimum-In Minimum-Out (MIMO)—that support deliberate, ethical, and system-oriented responses. MIMO reconsiders what constitutes viable climate action and offers a responsible path between resigned inaction and technological optimism.

Both feminisms and finance are oriented through speculative futures, ranging from a palpable dread of disaster to an excited premonition of a better life. Western feminist promissories and financial…

The declines signal another day of massive losses ahead when trading officially begins.