Call for Proposals

ROSCon Global 2026 will be held in Toronto, Canada on September 22nd - September 24th, 2026. It is the venue for open source robotics developers of all levels, beginner to expert, to spend an extrordinary three days learning from and networking with the open robotics community.

For this, we’re calling for your contributions! The core of the conference is (and always has been) content from the community, and this year, we’re looking for proposals for three different types of content.

• Workshops: As in 2025, we will offer workshops on Day 1 of the conference. The goal of a workshop is to provide space for a participatory/interactive experiences between the presenter(s) and the participants, and the chance to go more in depth into a subject than a regular talk could allow.
• Presentations: The standard presentation format is the talk, with the presenter(s) talking live about a specific topic, with a brief question period at the end, fitting into a time slot between 10 and 30 minutes in length.
• Birds of a Feather sessions: As happens every year, members of the community organise meetings between anyone present interested in a topic, such as medical robotics or debugging tools.

We are also planning panels, keynote speakers and of course, lightning talks. The conference program will be a combination of single-track and double-track sessions.

Please note that, as last year, ROSCon Global 2026 will be fully in-person, and remote presentations will not be considered.

General Content Guidelines

All topics related to the Open Robotics platform are invited. Example topics include:

• new packages for ROS;
• new plugins for Gazebo;
• extensions to Open_RMF and ros-controls;
• new development tools for robotics;
• insights into and improvements the existing software;
• case studies on unique deployments and use cases using Open Robotics software;
• developments for specific robots, sensors, platforms;
• competitions, collaborations, and initiatives;
• open Robotics software in commercial, research, and teaching environments; and
• standards and best practices.

To get an idea of the content and tone of ROSCon Global, check out the slides and videos from previous years. Remember that we cannot offer content that is not proposed! If there is a topic on which you would like to present, please propose it. If you have an idea for an important topic that you do not want to present yourself, please post it for discussion on the Open Robotics Discourse.

Review Criteria

All submissions will be reviewed by the program committee against the following evaluation criteria.

• Relevance to the Open Robotics community - The proposed content should use some part of the Open Robotics platform in a substantial way, but beyond that, the work must also be relevant and compelling to a general Open Robotics audience. Writing a ROS driver for a specific piece of hardware is an excellent contribution to the community, but describing the intricacies of its firmware may not be relevant to this audience. Furthermore, content should be relevant to a global and diverse community.
• Quality of content/impact - We encourage proposals to contain big ideas with high impact. Proposals should have a demonstrable quality as opposed to being purely theoretical.
• Quality of presentation - Articulating your ideas clearly and grammatically is a key prerequisite for giving a compelling live presentation.
• Originality/novelty - Content should be original and not something that has already been heard before. Will this be the 41st talk on a particular topic at ROSCon or are you presenting something new? Has your topic been taught in a workshop at a prior ROSCon? Does your Birds of a Feather session’s topic have a proven track-record of attracting a lot of interest?
• Open source availability - Because we are an open-source community, proposals for which the underlying code and other content is available under an open source license have a greater chance of being accepted. It is not a hard requirement, but proposals focused on proprietary systems should contribute in some other way to the community. Promises of future release are difficult to evaluate, so having your content released at the time of proposal submission is preferred.

Additional consideration will be given to balancing the subject matter and duration of presentation. We encourage proposals from presenters of all backgrounds and experience levels.

Workshop Proposal Submission Information

Workshop proposals must include a title, a list of workshop organisers (including the contact organiser), a summary for use in the conference programme, and detailed information for use by the reviewers. For detailed submission requirements, see the workshop submission site, below. You must create an account and sign into the submission site to submit a workshop proposal.

📝 Submit your workshop proposal 📝

Workshop proposal submissions are due on April 5th, 2026. Submitters will be notified on or around May 12th, 2026 whether their proposal has been accepted, and accepted workshops will be published in the conference programme shortly after.

Presentation Proposal Submission Information

Presentation proposals must include a title, a list of presenters, a summary for use in the conference programme, and detailed information for use by the reviewers. For detailed submission requirements, see the presentation submission site, below. You must create an account and sign into the submission site to submit a presentation proposal.

📝 Submit your presentation proposal 📝

Presentation proposal submissions are due on April 26th, 2026. Submitters will be notified on or around June 9th, 2026 whether their proposal has been accepted, and accepted presentations will be published in the conference programme shortly after.

Birds of a Feather Session Proposal Submission Information

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are informal gatherings of individuals with a common interest in a particular topic. At ROSCon, attendees freely hold BoF sessions on a wide range of topics related to open-source robotics. Topics can be as broad as “medical robots,” “marine robots,” and “best practices for simulation”; or as narrow as “how do you use executors to reduce jitter?” and “how can we make the buildfarm even better?” Anyone can organize a BoF session at any time during ROSCon, as long as it they find somewhere within the venue to gather that doesn’t interrupt existing conference activities.

To make organising a BoF session easier, we offer a dedicated space for holding BoF sessions on Day 1 of the conference. We have a limited number of slots in this space available, so proposals to use the space for a BoF session must be submitted in advance of the conference.

Birds of a Feather Session proposals must include a title, an organiser, a summary for use in the conference programme, and detailed information for use by the reviewers. For detailed submission requirements, see the Birds of a Feather session submission site, below. You must create an account and sign into the submission site to submit a proposal.

📝 Submit your Birds of a Feather session proposal 📝

Birds of a Feather Session proposal submissions are due on July 24th, 2026. Submitters will be notified on or around July 31st, 2026 whether their proposal has been accepted, and accepted Birds of a Feather sessions will be published in the conference programme shortly after.

If there are still slots available in our dedicated Birds of a Feather space after the due date passes, we will continue to accept proposal submissions. Each additional proposal will be reviewed for suitability and either accepted or rejected immediately. Submissions will close once all remaining slots in our dedicated space are filled.

You may organise a BoF session outside of the dedicated space and time slots. However, you must not hold your BoF session somewhere that will interrupt existing conference activities in that location at the same time.

If you have any questions or comments, please email roscon-2026-ec@openrobotics.org

Program Co-Chairs:

• Juan Miguel Jimeno
• Kimberly McGuire