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ECCV 2026 Senior Area Chair Guidelines

 

Guidelines

Thank you for agreeing to serve as an SAC for ECCV 2026! This document provides an overview of your responsibilities and guidelines for fulfilling your role as an SAC.

As an SAC, your role is to oversee the work of approximately 30 ACs, respectively, approximately 10 AC triplets, making sure the review process runs smoothly. SACs serve as the first point of contact for ACs if they need assistance or guidance. SACs shall:

  • ensure the ACs advance according to plan (e.g., help ACs chase late reviewers),
  • be available to provide a second opinion in difficult borderline cases,
  • discuss the proposed decisions with the Program Chairs when necessary, and
  • serve as an emergency fallback in the unlikely case that an AC drops out.

 

Contact Info

If you encounter a situation you cannot resolve on your own, please contact the Program Chairs. Any questions about conflicts of interest should go to the program chairs.

Important Dates

 

Here is a tentative schedule of key dates (all at 11:00 PM CET) for SACs. They are subject to fine-tuning if needed.

March 13-20, 2026 - ACs receive papers and suggest reviewers

March 31, 2026 - Papers assigned to reviewers  

April 21, 2026 - Reviews due  

April 22 - May 1, 2026 - ACs ensure every paper has at least 3 high-quality reviews (will need to verify review quality, run after reviewers with missing/poor reviews, and obtain emergency reviews as needed)  

May 2, 2026 - Reviews released to authors

May 2-11, 2026 - Author rebuttal

May 12-20, 2026 - ACs discuss papers with reviewers  

May 20, 2026 - Final reviewer recommendations due  

May 25, 2026 - ACs’ preliminary meta-reviews and recommendations due

May 26 - June 4, 2026 - AC Triplet meetings (flexibly scheduled by each triplet); discussion with SAC

June 9, 2026 - ACs’ final meta-reviews and recommendations due
June 17, 2026 - Final accept/reject decisions to authors

 

Main Tasks

  1. Preparation & AC assignment:
    • Please ensure that your preferred email address is accurate in your OpenReview profile. We will send most emails from OpenReview (i.e., noreply@openreview.net). Such emails are sometimes accidentally marked as spam. Please check your spam folder regularly. If you find such an email in there, please whitelist the OpenReview email address so that you will receive future emails from OpenReview.
    • Please log in to OpenReview and make sure that your profile is up to date, so that you will be assigned relevant ACs to work with.
    • Read and agree to abide by the ECCV code of conduct.
    • Read what constitutes a conflict of interest for ECCV 2026.
    • In addition to the guidelines below, please familiarize yourself with the AC guidelines and Guidance to Area Chairs on Contribution Types. You will be interacting with ACs frequently, so please make sure you understand what is expected of them. You can also view the Reviewer guidelines.
    • You will be assigned ~10 AC triplets (~30 ACs) to work with. Each triplet will have one AC designated as the Lead AC, who will primarily be responsible for communicating with you. When you receive your assignment, look it over carefully and email the PCs if you have any concerns.
    • Note the Responsible AC Policy in the AC guidelines and inform Program Chairs if an AC exhibits "highly irresponsible" behavior.
  2. Make sure that ACs act on flagged missing/incomplete paper reviews: April 22 - May 1
    • Reviews are due on April 21. ACs should ensure that the reviewers have completed their reviews, send reminder emails if needed, and read all reviews to ensure they are up to standards. Your workload should be light during this period, but do check in to make sure that ACs are following up on missing/incomplete reviews. If an AC is unresponsive or requests support, be ready to step in.
  3. Make sure ACs initiate discussions with reviewers: May 12-20
    • As soon as the authors’ response is entered into the system, ACs should lead a discussion on OpenReview for each submission and ensure reviewers engage in the discussion phase. If your assigned ACs have not initiated discussions, prompt them to do so.
    • Make sure ACs follow up on any missing Final Recommendations, due on May 20.
  4. Preliminary metareviews due on May 25; AC Triplets meet May 26 - June 4
    • Remind ACs to submit preliminary metareviews for each paper by May 25. 
    • Make sure they schedule triplet meetings (typically facilitated by Lead ACs).
    • If AC triplets can not reach consensus, they will seek your input. The Lead AC will then request/schedule a meeting with you. Pay particular attention to borderline papers. 
    • For the papers in which the AC’s recommendation goes against the unanimous recommendation of the reviewers, the decision needs to be approved by the PCs.
    • If needed, meet with Program Chairs to address remaining hard cases.
  5. AC final metareviews and recommendations due June 9
    • Remind ACs to submit final meta-reviews and recommendations by June 9. 
    • In the unlikely case that an AC drops out, you will be asked to step in as an emergency AC.
  6. PCs and SACs finalize special categories (e.g., orals, spotlights) and award nominations.

 

Best Practices

  • Be responsive. Respect deadlines and respond to emails as promptly as possible. Make sure that your preferred email address is accurate in your OpenReview profile and that emails from noreply@openreview.net don’t go to spam. If you will be unavailable (e.g., on vacation) for more than a few days—especially during important windows (e.g., decision-making)—please let the program chairs know as soon as possible.
  • Be proactive. It is your primary objective to make sure that the review process goes smoothly. Check that the ACs you work with are responsive and that discussion is happening on their papers. Help them find emergency reviewers if needed.
  • Be kind. It is important to acknowledge that personal situations may lead to late or unfinished work among reviewers and ACs. In all communications, exhibit empathy and understanding.
  • Respect conflicts of interest. If you notice a conflict of interest with a submission that is assigned to one of your ACs, contact program chairs right away. Do not talk to other SACs about submissions assigned to your ACs without prior approval from program chairs since other SACs may have conflicts with these submissions. Do not talk to other SACs or ACs about submissions you are an author on or submissions with which you have a conflict of interest.
  • Familiarize yourself with the code of conduct. All participants must agree to abide by the ECCV code of conduct.

Confidentiality

You must keep everything relating to the review process confidential. Do not use ideas, code, or results from submissions in your own work until they become publicly available (e.g., via a technical report or a published paper for ideas/results, via open source for code). Do not talk about or distribute submissions (whether it is the code, or the ideas and results described in them) to anyone without prior approval from the program chairs. Code submitted for review cannot be distributed.