How much is submission acceptance to high-profile conferences influenced by internal politics?

Question

I was speaking with several professors in my department about submission to high-profile conferences like CHI in human-computer interaction. Most of the professors were of the opinion that acceptance in most of these high-profile conferences (typical acceptance rate of less than 20%) is heavily influenced by politics: even though you may have comparatively good research, the editors will most likely be more favored toward accepting papers published by Microsoft Research or Google Research or from other high-profile universities where they have close relationship with the faculty and researchers.

The professors advised me against spending time and resources on publishing to these conferences and instead concentrate on second-tier journals (like those published by Springer) for better return on investment for my efforts.

I assume in good faith that most of the editors may not reject papers without reading them, but does anybody concur with the opinion of professors at my department?

Answer 1

It is an often-heard prejudice in CS that many of the top conferences are relatively closed "boys clubs". Indeed, if one just looks over accepted papers for multiple years, one typically ends up seeing the same affiliations over and over again, strengthening this impression.

However, this could be due to a number of (good or bad) reasons:

• Papers from professors / labs that are well-known in the field may simply be of much higher technical quality, making it quite natural that they also get accepted much more often.
• Professors / labs that are well-known in the field generally know how to write papers for this specific conference. They know what the TPC values, and how to present their results in a way that is appreciated in the field. As these professors are typically in the TPC themselves, they know what kind of papers usually get accepted and which are rejected.
• Professors / labs that are well-known in the field often have a better grasp on the existing state of the art in the field, making it easier for them to identify what is good and novel. In my experience, "outsiders" have a tendency to overestimate the novelty of their contributions significantly. Further, well-known labs know what problems are currently en vogue in the community.
• It is of course also perceivable that papers from well-known professors / labs are just not judged as critically. For instance, a reader may very well think that a paper is not applying a given technique correctly, but as the paper comes from the group that invented this technique, he gives them the benefit of doubt and assumes that they will know the technique better than him. He would probably not extend the same favorable thinking to an outsider.
• Finally, for some topics, it is just easier for some labs to do good research than others. A common example are the web search tracks at the WWW conference. These tracks typically require the validation of new algorithms on real data, to which mostly only industry labs from Yahoo! etc. and their close collaborators have access.

Note that none of these reasons is really politics. Indeed, I would argue that all of the reasons above are significantly more likely than a paper getting rejected for the reasons you cited.

I assume in good faith that most of the editors may not reject papers without reading them

I would say, at a top conference such as CHI, you can rely on your paper at least getting reviewed thoroughly, yes.

but does anybody concur with opinion of professors at my department?

Well, given all the reasons above, it is indeed quite likely that your paper will be rejected. By definition, if a conference has a <20% acceptance rate, rejection is always a real possibility (clearly, it happens to most submissions). However, I am wondering why it would be better to not even try if you think your work is good enough for CHI. If the paper gets rejected there, you can still re-submit to a lower-tier venue, and you receive a number of hopefully helpful reviews. The only disadvantage I see is that it prolongs the publication process by half a year, but if you see any chance of the paper begin accepted at the top-tier venue, I think this should be worth it.

Answer 2

Having served on the CHI program committee, many other program committees, and having been program chair of a couple of other HCI conferences, I think your professors are overly cynical.

First, as JeffE pointed out, CHI (and many other conferences) use blind or semi-blind reviewing, so at least the reviewers do not know whose paper they are reviewing.

Second, I have never been in a PC meeting where the identities of the authors was a point of discussion. Of course that doesn't mean that the associate chair (AC) for the paper was not influenced by who the authors were, but it would certainly imply that there is no institutionalized bias for or against particular authors or institutions.

I would definitely not worry about your papers being rejected without being reviewed; in fact, when you submit you will get the reviews so you know why your paper was or was not accepted.

Answer 3

I completely agree with almost everything xLeitix wrote, except the conclusion. One thing that was not addressed is why your professors told you not to submit to CHI. It's possible that they're giving their honest opinions, or that they themselves had a bad record submitting there.

But it's also possible that they are telling you that your work is not good enough for CHI, but in a gentle manner. Also, they are familiar with where you are in your career track and may believe that losing time and effort on a failed CHI attempt is not good for you. Both of these require perspective that you cannot have on yourself.

Consequently, I would suggest that you take the advice you were given.

Answer 4

This kind of advice is often given to people, but in my view it's fundamentally misguided.

It's true to some extent that many of the top conferences have a particular way of doing things, and that people in the community associated with a conference will often have more experience with that way of doing things and find it easier to get papers accepted there. However, it's untrue that the communities associated with particular conferences are a closed shop: it's entirely possible to adapt your way of doing things to what you know different conferences expect, and that will improve your acceptance rate at those conferences. Moreover, it's absolutely worth your while to do this, because publishing at the top conferences massively improves your chances of having a successful academic career (not to mention that it puts you in contact with a large number of good researchers in your field).

In that sense, the people who are suggesting that you eschew the top conferences and simply send your work to second-tier venues are doing you a serious disservice, because they're basically ensuring that you're not even on the pitch where you could compete with your peers (indeed, the heavy focus that top groups put on publishing at top conferences tends to mean that they are underwhelmed by people who don't compete). If you're good and you put in sufficient effort, you can definitely play at the right level, whereas counting yourself out of the game before you've even tried to succeed is deeply unwise in my view.

TL;DR The people giving you this advice are leading you astray in my view. It's not wise to spend your time and energy submitting papers to venues that many researchers will view as being less than top-flight, when you could be refining your papers to make sure that they get into the top venues.

More generally, people unfortunately tend to give similar advice about all kinds of things, not just academic conferences. A classic example would be applying to university, or applying for top jobs. The general form of such advice tends to be:

• This venue is biased against you specifically, or against people like you (whatever that means) in general.
• This venue wouldn't suit you if you were accepted -- you'd enjoy it way less than a lower-tier venue.
• This venue isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway -- they just have a high opinion of themselves.

There are certainly situations in which people might be a bit biased, or in which you wouldn't enjoy some place, or in which the place isn't as good as it thinks it is, but these things are by no means universally true. If people tell you "don't apply to X because I have specific, verifiable evidence of Y", then that may be one thing (check the "verifiable evidence"), but if they tell you not to apply to top venues in general, then you need to seriously question that.

Answer 5

I agree with xLeitix's answer and would like to elaborate on how some high-profile researchers manage to constantly appear at certain high-profile conferences.

I'd say the method to reliably appear on a given conference are resources and focus:

First, to professor X, conference A is not simply another conference. It is their subfield's "flagship" conference, their "home" meeting. They will and can put a lot of effort into making sure they get published there. Thus, they do not just submit one paper. They make sure they have at least a short paper about each of their hottest ideas to submit. With ten or more submissions, a few acceptances are likely even at a low acceptance rate.

Related to that, note that the conference topic is probably not just X's personal hobby. More likely, they have an entire research group specialized on the conference's core topic at their disposal. X is probably already involved with half a dozen projects with different members of their group at any time, all of which are thematically suitable for conference A.

Lastly, there is simply a strong overlap between X's topics of expertise and A's topics. Even if X does, somehow, not manage to publish in A, they will actively participate nonetheless (thereby adding to the impression that their name appears all the time with respect to A):

• They may be among A's chairs.
• They might chair one or more sessions at A.
• They might be invited to give a keynote talk at A.
• They might offer a workshop co-located with A. Note that even without anything questionable going on, this could lead to a certain additional bias towards contributions by X's group: While less frequently so for workshops at very large conferences, workshops often rely extensively on word-of-mouth marketing. As a consequence, people in X's direct vicinity are most likely to know about the workshop and its precise focus.
• As a well-known member of the audience whose work is being built upon by other submissions to A, they might be mentioned in some of the talks. This can happen in totally informal remarks: "Last year, Alice, who is sitting over there, presented technique Y and asked Z, so I have been looking into Z."

And even if all of these fail, X will still attend A and attract enough attention during coffee breaks to reinforce the memory: X was actively part of A again.

Answer 6

Politic is everywhere, of course, especially in situations where the resource giving out to people is limited. Bear in mind, taking a look at the program committee before submitting! And please don't stick to one conference! Even some well-known professors get rejection at some conferences, let alone others.