ACL Conference Awards Policy

This document lays out a standard protocol for awards at ACL conferences (Note that for conferences colocated with a non-ACL event there may need to be some adjustments depending on the policies of the other event. Also, this process was not developed for workshops or journals.). The goal of introducing the policy is to have a consistent approach that suits the scale of our conferences today. The policy is designed to highlight work that is interesting along a variety of axes in ways that encourage discussion. Recognizing valuable work in a consistent way also means the value is clearer (e.g., for hiring and tenure cases).

Award Types and Criteria

Best Paper Award

We define "Best" as work that is particularly fascinating, controversial, surprising, impressive, and/or potentially field-changing.

• "Best Paper Award": Typically no more than 6 papers receive this award. These papers are presented in a plenary session at the conference. PCs should consider scheduling this plenary session early in the conference, to encourage discussion of the papers during the conference.
• "Outstanding Paper Award": 1.5–2.5% of accepted papers, selected as part of the same process. This allows for broader recognition of work that meets the criteria.
• "Area Chair's Award": Up to one paper per track. These are selected by the SACs for each track.
• Short and long papers are considered together for these awards.

Test of Time Award

See the policy at Test-of-Time Papers Award.

Special Categories

Two special awards will recognise work with a particular focus as described below. Papers that receive an award in a special category are also eligible to receive a general award.

• Social Impact Award - For papers that have the potential for significant positive societal impact.
• Resource Award - For papers that announce, describe, and share a fascinating, valuable, or potentially field-changing new resource (e.g., a dataset or knowledge graph).

Program Committee Chairs may also choose to include awards for other categories. Examples of additional special categories include:

• Software Award - For papers that describe and share (ideally via source code) a fascinating, valuable, or potentially field-changing new piece of software. Note that this is not the same as the Demonstration Paper Award since there could be papers outside of that track that meet this criterion.
• Demonstration Paper Award - For papers in the Demonstration Track.
• Theme Paper Award - For papers on the conference’s theme.
• Linguistic Insight Award - For papers that make a particularly significant contribution to our understanding of language.
• Low-Resource Paper Award - For papers that contribute to work on languages or domains with limited data.
• Interdisciplinary Research Award - For papers that contribute to NLP and another field in new and interesting ways.
• Reproduction Award - For papers that reproduce prior work in a particularly enlightening way, revealing additional features of the prior work.

Selection Process

Nominations

In the review process, reviewers (Note: PCs may choose whether or not to include reviewers in the nomination process.), AEs, ACs, and SACs will be asked to answer the following questions:

• 1. "Could the camera-ready version of this paper merit consideration for an "outstanding paper" award (up to 2.5% of accepted papers will be recognized in this way)? Outstanding papers should be either fascinating, controversial, surprising, impressive, or potentially field-changing. Awards will be decided based on the camera-ready version of the paper."
  • "Yes"
  • "Maybe"
  • "No"
• "If yes/maybe, please briefly describe why:"
  • (short answer box with no word or character limit)