Scope Correction Reset Announcement from the NSDI Steering Committee

The NSDI Steering Committee is deliberately effecting a course correction regarding the scope of papers accepted to the conference. The correction is motivated by the committee’s observation that NSDI papers on certain topics have generated less community engagement than most papers. The implementation of scope correction in the 2025 submission cycle was flawed: feedback to authors was inadequate and came at inconsistent times.

In the 2026 cycle, the SC will continue the course-correction effort, but with a substantially different implementation. One change is that the SC has added clarification of excluded topics to the CFP to help authors better understand the conference’s intended scope. Also, in the 2026 cycle, PC members will participate in the scope evaluation and thus papers rejected for scope (or for any other reason) will have been evaluated by normal PC review process.

We hope these changes will accomplish our goal of deliberate scope adjustment while avoiding the frustrations of the 2025 implementation. We will continue to assess the effectiveness of implementation choices and make further adjustments as necessary beyond 2026.