SemEval-2026: Call for Task Proposals URL: https://semeval.github.io/SemEval2026/cft

# Call for Task Proposals

We invite proposals for tasks to be run as part of SemEval-2026. SemEval (the International Workshop on Semantic Evaluation) is an ongoing series of evaluations of computational semantics systems, organized under the umbrella of SIGLEX, the Special Interest Group on the Lexicon of the Association for Computational Linguistics.

SemEval tasks explore the nature of meaning in natural languages: how to characterize meaning and how to compute it. This is achieved in practical terms, using shared datasets and standardized evaluation metrics to quantify the strengths and weaknesses and possible solutions. SemEval tasks encompass a broad range of semantic topics from the lexical level to the discourse level, including word sense identification, semantic parsing, coreference resolution, and sentiment analysis, among others.

For SemEval-2026, we welcome tasks that can test an automatic system for semantic analysis of text (e.g., intrinsic semantic evaluation, or an application-oriented evaluation). We especially encourage tasks for languages other than English, cross-lingual tasks, and tasks that develop novel applications of computational semantics. See the websites of previous editions of SemEval to get an idea about the range of tasks explored, e.g. SemEval-2020 (http://alt.qcri.org/semeval2020/) and SemEval-2021/2025 (https://semeval.github.io).

We strongly encourage proposals based on pilot studies that have already generated initial data, evaluation measures and baselines. In this way, we can avoid unforeseen challenges down the road that may delay the task. We suggest providing a reasonable baseline (e.g., providing a BERT baseline for a classification task) apart from majority vote / random guess.

In case you are not sure whether a task is suitable for SemEval, please feel free to get in touch with the SemEval organizers at semevalorganizers@gmail.com to discuss your idea.

## Task Selection

Task proposals will be reviewed by experts, and reviews will serve as the basis for acceptance decisions. Everything else being equal, more innovative new tasks will be given preference over task reruns. Task proposals will be evaluated on:

- Novelty: Is the task on a compelling new problem that has not been explored much in the community? Is the task a rerun, but covering substantially new ground (new subtasks, new types of data, new languages, etc. - one addition is not sufficient)?

- Interest: Is the proposed task likely to attract a sufficient number of participants?

- Data: Are the plans for collecting data convincing? Will the resulting data be of high quality? Will annotations have meaningfully high inter-annotator agreements? Have all appropriate licenses for use and re-use of the data after the evaluation been secured? Have all international privacy concerns been addressed? Will the data annotation be ready on time?

- Evaluation: Is the methodology for evaluation sound? Is the necessary infrastructure available or can it be built in time for the shared task? Will research inspired by this task be able to evaluate in the same manner and on the same data after the initial task? Is the task significantly challenging (e.g. room for improvement over the baselines)?

- Impact: What is the expected impact of the data in this task on future research beyond the SemEval Workshop?

- Ethical – The data must be compliant with privacy policies. e.g.

a) avoid personally identifiable information (PII). Tasks aimed at identifying specific people will not be accepted,

b) avoid medical decision making (compliance with HIPAA, do not try to replace medical professionals, especially if it has anything to do with mental health)

c) these are representative and not exhaustive

## Submission Details

The task proposal should be a self-contained document of no longer than 3 pages (plus additional pages for references). Please see website for further information.

## Important dates

- Task proposals due 31 March 2025 (Anywhere on Earth)

- Task selection notification 19 May 2025

## Preliminary timetable

- Sample data ready 15 July 2025

- Training data ready 1 September 2025

- Evaluation data ready 1 December 2025 (internal deadline; not for public release)

- Evaluation start 10 January 2026

- Evaluation end by 31 January 2026 (latest date; task organizers may choose an earlier date)

- Paper submission due February 2026

- Notification to authors March 2026

- Camera ready due April 2026

- SemEval workshop Summer 2026 (co-located with a major NLP conference)

Tasks that fail to keep up with crucial deadlines (such as the dates for having the task and CodaLab website up and dates for uploading sample, training, and evaluation data) may be cancelled at the discretion of SemEval organizers. While consideration will be given to extenuating circumstances, our goal is to provide sufficient time for the participants to develop strong and well-thought-out systems. Cancelled tasks will be encouraged to submit proposals for the subsequent year’s SemEval. To reduce the risk of tasks failing to meet the deadlines, we are unlikely to accept multiple tasks with overlap in the task organizers.

## Chairs

- Sara Rosenthal, IBM Research AI

- Aiala Rosá, Universidad de la República, Uruguay

- Marcos Zampieri, George Mason University, USA

- Debanjan Ghosh, Educational Testing Service,