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Defining a new IR playground: open information retrieval research questions not solved by LLMs.
Berlin, March 2027.
A SIGIR Futures activity, collocated with ACM SIGIR CHIIR 2027.
THE CALL
What important IR research problems are still not solved by LLMs?
LLMs have changed what is easy to do in information retrieval. They have not finished the field. We are collecting research directions from the next generation of IR researchers and bringing them together into a research agenda for the field’s future.
We want to hear from the next generation
Much of the research agenda in IR has traditionally been shaped by established researchers. But the researchers who will spend the next five or ten years working on the field’s open problems should have a say in what those problems are.
This is an invitation to put those ideas on the table.
Send us a research direction
What is an important IR problem that remains unsolved? What should researchers be working on next?
Send us a few hundred words describing your idea. It can be a problem, a question, a gap, or a direction you think the field should pursue.
There is no competitive selection process. We want to collect ideas from across the community, bring them together, and develop them into a research agenda.
If you contribute a research direction, you become a co-author of the resulting research agenda paper.
The format has been done before, in NLP
Defining a New NLP Playground sets out twenty-odd dissertation-worthy research directions.
Has It All Been Solved? sets out forty-five open questions that require new research and are not addressed by LLMs.
HOW IT WORKS
Send an idea, become a co-author
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Send an idea
Submit a research direction on an important IR problem that is still open in the age of LLMs. A few hundred words is enough.
[Submission deadline??]
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Become a co-author
Your research direction becomes part of the research agenda, and you become a co-author of the resulting paper. There is no acceptance decision to wait for.
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Develop the agenda
We group the submitted ideas into themes and develop them into a coherent research agenda. The main in-person work happens in Berlin in March 2027, where we cluster and discuss the ideas together.
You do not have to be in Berlin to contribute.
WHAT TO WRITE
Your research direction
Tell us about an IR research problem that you think is still worth pursuing. It can be a problem that:
- LLMs do not solve
- LLMs change but do not eliminate
- requires new methods, systems, evaluations, or user research
- you think deserves substantial future research
There is no required format. We are interested in the problem itself. You do not need to write a full paper or a position paper.
THE PAPER
A collective research agenda for IR
The submitted research directions are brought together and developed into a research agenda for information retrieval. Ideas are clustered into themes, discussed, and synthesized during the workshop in Berlin.
Contributors are co-authors of the resulting research agenda paper. The aim is a document that identifies the IR research problems worth the next generation's time.
Where it goes
Full report in SIGIR Forum, December 2027. Perspective papers to the SIGIR 2028 Perspectives track.
[Is this correct?]
BERLIN
March 2027
The main activity takes place in Berlin, collocated with ACM SIGIR CHIIR 2027 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. We print the submitted research directions, cluster them, form thematic groups, and work on the agenda together.
You do not need to attend CHIIR or the Berlin meeting in order to submit an idea or to be part of the agenda.
[Add the exact date / timeline]
FUNDING
Support to attend
Some funding is available for contributors who want to attend the activity in Berlin. We currently expect to cover approximately $500 in conference costs for selected contributors, subject to available funding.
Submitting an idea does not require attending Berlin, and funding is not a condition of contributing or of co-authorship.
[Participants are asked about this in the survey. Need to communicate this section better.]
FAQ
Questions
Is this a normal workshop submission?
No. We are asking for short research directions, not full workshop papers.
Will ideas be rejected?
The intention is to include all submitted research directions and to use clustering and discussion to organize and develop them.
How long should my submission be?
A few hundred words is enough.
What do I get by contributing?
You become a co-author of the resulting research agenda paper.
Do I need to attend Berlin?
No. You can contribute without attending the in-person activity.
Does my idea have to be completely new?
No. It needs to identify an important research problem that remains open and worth pursuing.
Who can contribute?
[Draft: anyone working in IR or information science, at any career stage. The agenda is aimed at the next generation, so PhD students and early-career researchers are particularly wanted, but nobody is excluded.]
CONTACT
Get in touch
Questions about the activity, submissions, or organization: