2026Q3 Reports: CL Journal
Submission Growth
| Quarter | Submissions |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 332 |
| 2025 | 493 |
| 2026 (as of 2026-06-01) | 289 |
Submissions to the journal grew by 48% in 2025, and this growth has continued into 2026.
Review Timeline
| Year | With desk rejection | Without desk rejection |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 25.9 | 51.3 |
| 2025 | 14.5 | 57.7 |
| 2026 | 12.5 | 59.8 |
At the same time, we have continued to improve the editorial process, including further reducing the time required for desk-rejection decisions. Time is shown in days. The “year” is when the first decision was made, which may not be the year in which the paper was submitted.
Rising Impact
| Year | Impact Factor |
|---|---|
| 2023 (released in June 2024) | 3.7 |
| 2024 (released in June 2025) | 5.3 |
| 2025 (released in June 2026) | 13.4 |
We are also pleased to share that the latest Impact Factor for Computational Linguistics is 13.4, marking the first time in the journal’s history that it has exceeded 10.
This ranks Computational Linguistics:
- 13 out of 210 journals in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
- 7 out of 185 in Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
- 1 out of 312 in Linguistics
CL Publicity Editor
We have also established a new position within the CL editorial office: CL Publicity Editor, who will manage CL’s overall social presence. We are delighted to welcome Sarvnaz Karimi, ACL Publicity Director, as the inaugural Publicity Editor for Computational Linguistics.
CL Awards
This year, CL launched two new awards: the CL High Impact Paper Award and the CL Distinguished Reviewer Award. Further details will be made available through dedicated wiki pages. The inaugural recipients of these awards will be announced during ACL 2026.
Dissertation Award
CL also continued the Dissertation Award, now in its second year and organized in collaboration with the ACL Executive Committee. We are grateful to all nominators, participants, and colleagues who helped support this initiative. As part of the award, the winning dissertation will be adapted for publication in Computational Linguistics.
Special Issue
CL also approved a Special Issue on the Ethics of NLP and CL, with guest editors listed below. More information can be found here: https://submissions.cljournal.org/index.php/cljournal/announcement/view/18
- Karën Fort, Université de Lorraine / LORIA, France
- Margot Mieskes, University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany
- Zeerak Talat, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Presentation at AAAI
CL, in consultation with the ACL Exec, has worked with AAAI to establish an arrangement under which eligible accepted CL papers may be **additionally** presented at AAAI conferences. In principle, this may include papers that have already been presented, or will be presented, at an *ACL venue, as well as CL papers that are extensions of conference papers and were therefore not eligible for presentation again at *ACL venues. Final decisions are subject to AAAI’s discretion.
Thanks
The CL editorial office sincerely thanks the community for its continued dedication and support. We warmly encourage authors to continue sending their strongest work to Computational Linguistics.