/01
Reasoning & planning
Turning deliberation into decisions that work beyond a single response.
- Chain-of-thought, search, and test-time scaling
- Long-horizon planning and task decomposition
- World models, causal and multimodal reasoning
AN AACL–IJCNLP 2026 WORKSHOP
From Reasoning
to Agency.
Learning, Acting, and Adapting
with Foundation Models
Beyond generating answers. Toward systems that
reason, act, and learn from the world.
INTELLIGENCE, IN THE LOOP
01THE WORKSHOP
Reasoning is a beginning.
Agency is the next step.
Foundation models are becoming more capable reasoners. The next challenge is to turn that capability into purposeful action: making plans, using tools, interacting with environments, and learning from experience.
This workshop brings together the NLP, machine learning, and agentic AI communities to study that transition. We ask how reasoning supports action, how interaction creates new learning opportunities, and how agents can adapt reliably over time.
Find your research directionReason with purpose
From inference to plans and decisions.
Act in the world
From text to tools and environments.
Adapt through experience
From feedback to lasting improvement.
02TOPICS OF INTEREST
Many directions.
One connected conversation.
We welcome work across the full path from
reasoning to agency, including but not limited
to the following themes.
/02
Learning to act
Learning effective behavior from feedback, demonstrations, and interaction.
- Reinforcement learning and verifiable rewards
- Imitation learning and trajectory optimization
- Process supervision and synthetic experience
/03
Tools & environments
Connecting foundation models to tools, computers, and the physical world.
- Tool use, function calling, and orchestration
- Web, coding, and computer-use agents
- Embodied agents and multimodal interaction
/04
Memory & adaptation
Building agents that retain experience and improve as their worlds change.
- Episodic memory and context management
- Continual learning and test-time adaptation
- Self-reflection, skill discovery, and transfer
/05
Multi-agent collaboration
Studying how agents coordinate with each other and collaborate with people.
- Communication, coordination, and cooperation
- Collective reasoning and multi-agent learning
- Human–agent interaction and shared control
/06
Evaluation & responsible agency
Measuring meaningful progress toward reliable, efficient, and safe agents.
- Benchmarks, reproducibility, and real-world validity
- Robustness, safety, alignment, and oversight
- Interpretability and compute–performance trade-offs
Working between these themes? You belong here. We also welcome applications in scientific discovery, software engineering, embodied intelligence, education, and multilingual or low-resource settings.
03CALL FOR PAPERS
Bring a new perspective.
Move the field forward.
We invite original contributions that deepen our understanding of foundation models as reasoning, learning, and acting systems.
From a new method to a thoughtful position, from a useful benchmark to an illuminating negative result—there is room for different kinds of progress.
ACL / ARR templateDouble-blind review
Use review mode and anonymize your paper and supplementary materials.YOUR CONTRIBUTION STARTS HERE
Research & methods
Empirical studies, theoretical insights, new methods, and agent systems.
Perspectives & resources
Position papers, datasets, benchmarks, analyses, and emerging ideas.
Paper submission deadlineSeptember 30, 202611:59 PM Anywhere on Earth (UTC−12)
Submit your paper (opens in a new tab)04IMPORTANT DATES
Make space
for what’s next.
A few dates for your calendar.
All deadlines are at 11:59 PM AoE
(Anywhere on Earth, UTC−12).
A global community.
One shared deadline.
One shared deadline.
Call for papersThe conversation begins
Paper submission deadlineSubmit your contribution
Notification of acceptanceDecisions sent to authors
Camera-ready papers dueFinal versions from authors
Proceedings dueOrganizers · if publishing proceedings
See you in HengqinWorkshop window · exact day to be announced
The proceedings deadline applies to organizers, if archival publication is confirmed. Any ARR-specific timeline will be announced separately.
05THE PROGRAM
A day for ideas.
And the people behind them.
PROGRAM IN DEVELOPMENT
The planned program brings together talks,
research presentations, and open discussion.
The final schedule will be announced here.
Ideas from the frontier
Perspectives on reasoning, agent learning, and adaptation from researchers across the field.
Work worth talking about
Contributed presentations, posters, and space to share emerging work with the community.
Better questions, together
A conversation about open problems, meaningful evaluation, and the road toward capable agents.
06THE ORGANIZERS
Different perspectives.
Shared curiosity.
Meet the team bringing our community together
across NLP, machine learning, and agentic AI.
Jiaheng Liu
Nanjing University
Yuxiang Ren
Nanjing University
Zhen Zhang
Nanjing University
Yanghai Wang
Nanjing University
Yifan Yao
Nanjing University
Xinping Lei
Nanjing University
Yiyan Ji
Nanjing University
Haoran Yang
Central South University
Jiayi Tian
Alibaba
More voices joining the conversation.
STAY TUNEDInvited speakers will be announced as the program takes shape.
MEET US IN NOVEMBER
New connections.
A beautiful setting.
Join us in Hengqin, Zhuhai, just across the water from Macau, for a meeting of ideas at AACL-IJCNLP 2026.
Tianmu Melody Convention Exhibition CenterMain conference venue · workshop room TBA
07A FEW MORE DETAILS
Before you
submit.
The essentials, in one place.
Is my work a good fit for this workshop?
If your work helps explain or improve how foundation models reason, learn, act, or adapt, we would like to hear from you. We welcome empirical and theoretical work, systems, datasets, benchmarks, position papers, and carefully analyzed negative results. The topic list is illustrative, not exhaustive; connections across research areas are especially welcome.
What are the paper format and review requirements?
Please use the official ACL/ARR template in review mode and submit an anonymized PDF. Review will be double-blind: author identities must not appear in the paper or supplementary materials. Final page limits will be announced here. Please follow the ACL guidance for citations and anonymized artifacts.
Can I submit a paper already reviewed by ARR?
An ACL Rolling Review (ARR) commitment route is under consideration. Eligibility, a dedicated commitment link, and any separate deadline will be published if this route is offered. Until then, September 30, 2026 is the announced paper submission deadline; no ARR extension is confirmed.
Will accepted papers appear in the ACL Anthology?
The publication policy, including whether proceedings will appear in the ACL Anthology, is to be confirmed. Archival status and policies affecting submission of the same work to other venues will be stated in the final guidelines. The October 15 proceedings deadline is for organizers if archival proceedings are produced; it is not an additional author deadline.
When and where will the workshop take place?
The AACL-IJCNLP 2026 workshop window is November 9–10, 2026 in Hengqin, Zhuhai, China, next to Macau. The main conference venue is Tianmu Melody Convention Exhibition Center. Our exact workshop day, room, presentation requirements, and any remote participation options will be announced after confirmation.