Robots for a Sustainable World

Full Papers

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Important Dates

  • Abstract Submission Deadline (required for all full papers): September 24, 2024, 11:59 pm AoE
  • Submission Deadline (only if you submitted the abstract before Sep 24): October 1, 2024, 11:59 pm AoE
  • Review Notification: November 5, 2024
  • Rebuttals Due: November 11, 2024, 11:59 pm AoE
  • Decision Notification: December 2, 2024
  • Camera Ready Deadline: January 5, 2025, 11:59 pm AoE

The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction is a premier, highly-selective venue presenting the latest advances in Human-Robot Interaction. The 20th Annual HRI conference theme is “Robots for a Sustainable World.” The conference seeks contributions from a broad set of perspectives, including technical, design, behavioral, theoretical, and methodological, that advance fundamental and applied research in human-robot interaction. Full papers will be archived in the ACM Digital Library.

Abstracts Submission

Please be aware that from this year we require all full papers to submit an abstract and basic details about the paper a week before the paper submission deadline. Papers that did not submit the abstract on time will not be accepted.

In addition, the abstract, title, and list of authors information that is submitted at that time must be complete. Submissions for which it is obvious that the information submitted by the abstract deadline is merely a placeholder or incomplete will be deleted.

Format and Submission

Full papers are up to eight camera-ready pages, including figures, but excluding references. Accepted full papers will be published in the conference proceedings and presented in an oral session. Submissions longer than eight pages of content excluding references will be desk rejected and not reviewed. 

The HRI conference is highly selective with a rigorous, two-stage review model that includes an expert program committee meeting where papers are extensively discussed. As such, all submissions are expected to be mature, polished, and detailed accounts of cutting-edge research described and presented in camera-ready style. In cases of equally qualified papers, positive consideration will be given to submissions that address this year’s theme: “Robots for a Sustainable World.”

All papers for the conference must be submitted in PDF format and conform to IEEE Proceedings specifications. Templates are available at this link (use US letter format). In addition, the IEEE has partnered with Overleaf, so you can start writing using the this link directly.

Tracks

The HRI 2025 full paper submissions will have five tracks:

  1. Theory and Methods
  2. Design
  3. Technical
  4. Systems
  5. User Studies

Each of these tracks is aligned with a specific type of knowledge contribution and each paper will be assigned to one review subcommittee based on the chosen track. Authors are strongly encouraged to read through the tracks descriptions at the end of this page.

You will need to indicate your choice of track (and optionally your second choice) when you submit your paper. However, note that your choice of the paper track may be changed during the initial paper check stage, if that is deemed more appropriate by the Program Committee.

Go to Descriptions of Full Paper Tracks.

Accessibility

Make sure to read and follow the accessibility requirements described on the accessibility page.

Anonymization

The HRI 2025 full papers review process is double-blind; every aspect of all submissions must be properly anonymized. For full details on how to do anonymization, see the anonymization guidelines. If a submission contains any element (e.g., text or figures in the full paper document, artifacts, or supplementary materials) that violates the anonymization guidelines, it will be desk rejected. If there are exceptional circumstances, please contact the Program Chairs as soon as possible (pc2025@humanrobotinteraction.org).

Theme Recognition: Robots for a Sustainable World

This year, we aim to highlight papers that align with and contribute to our conference theme, “Robots for a Sustainable World.” We acknowledge the multifaceted nature of sustainability and consider it from various perspectives, including but not limited to environmental impact and climate action. We also welcome papers addressing a wide array of issues outlined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These goals include:

  • Social sustainability: emphasizing the importance of inclusive communities where everyone can thrive, promoting equity and social justice.
  • Technological sustainability: stressing the need to think critically about how our innovations impact society and the environment.
  • Economic sustainability: focusing on creating robust economic systems that support innovation and provide fair opportunities for all.

Additionally, we value papers that demonstrate a commitment to sustainable research practices. This includes minimizing the environmental footprint of research activities, promoting ethical data collection and usage, and ensuring accessibility and inclusivity in research design.

If you think the paper fits the theme and would like it to be considered for a theme recognition “Robots for a Sustainable World”, when submitting your paper you will have the option to describe in 1-2 short paragraphs why and how your paper relates to sustainability. This includes the impact of your contribution in the context of sustainability and/or the actions you have undertaken to make your work more sustainable.

Supplementary Materials

Authors have the opportunity to upload up to three supplemental files in conjunction with their full paper submission. These materials may be submitted via the “Supporting File 1,” “Supporting File 2,” and “Supporting File 3” sections within the full papers submission form in the submission system. While authors are encouraged to upload all supplementary materials directly, it may be infeasible to upload certain items directly (e.g., large data sets or code repositories). In this case, authors may upload a document with a link to where these anonymized supplemental materials are hosted.

Supplementary materials are not required for a submission. If authors do choose to submit supplementary materials, such materials may not be used to get around the page limit for full papers. It is important that any supplemental materials that are uploaded are also properly anonymized. Any submission that contains any element (full paper or supplementary materials) that violates the anonymization guidelines will be desk rejected.

In general, there are three main types of supplemental materials that may be submitted: videos, appendices, and artifacts (e.g., software, hardware, data sets, etc.).

Video Guidelines

Authors may submit a 1-minute video (up to 100 MB) as a supplement to their full paper. Videos are not mandatory but may be helpful to visibly showcase a working system, experimental conditions, environment context, results, etc. Only MPG, MPEG or MP4 video formats can be used. Ensure that videos are properly anonymized prior to submission (see Anonymization guidelines).

Accepted full papers with a video in supplementary material will be considered for Demo Fast Track. More details here.

Artifact Guidelines

Across all full paper tracks, we encourage submissions that introduce a novel “artifact” as an enabler to reproducibility, replicability, and recreation of HRI research, and/or to support new lines of HRI research. An artifact could be software, hardware, data sets, protocols, new evaluation measures, etc. Submissions should contain a detailed description of the artifact introduced, proposed, or implemented, as well as information about how it is novel and different from other existing artifacts, and, if possible, a link to an anonymized, live version of the artifact at time of submission for review.

Authors submitting artifacts must include with it a text file providing relevant details regarding any aspects related to artifact clearance and release (e.g., obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) clearance for releasing data collected by human participants, organizational clearances for the release of software/hardware, etc.). Ensure that artifacts are properly anonymized prior to submission. Any submission that includes any element (full paper, artifact, or supplementary materials) that does not follow the anonymization guidelines will be desk rejected.

Appendix Guidelines

Authors may upload an appendix directly or provide a link to supporting appendix material hosted anonymously online. Appendices are only for supplementary materials that would interrupt the flow of the text if presented in the main document. Examples may be questionnaires used as measurements, tables of supplementary data, or figures of experimental apparatus. 

Appendices may not be used to get around the 8-page limit for full paper submissions. Additional experimental analysis, additional results, and lengthy text that clarifies aspects of the full paper submission is not appropriate for an appendix (in other words, full paper submissions must stand on their own without requiring further explanation, analysis, or results provided in the appendix). Any submissions that attempt to use appendices or supplementary materials in general in a manner that violates the page limits will be desk rejected.

Note that appendices should not be added to the main document (even if the LaTeX template allows it).

Studies with Human Participants

As a published ACM/IEEE author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, and IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects (Note: ACM has instituted a new policy on research involving human participants and subjects as of August 15, 2021. Please check the above links if your studies involved human participants and subjects).

To support building a strong evidence base in HRI, and encourage future reproducibility of published work, all submissions involving studies with human participants clearly outline their methodology regardless of the theme they are submitted to, including:

In addition, studies that involve human participants need to include an ethical approval statement. According to the IEEE Submission and Peer Review Policies, “Authors of articles reporting on research involving human subjects or animals, including but extending beyond medical research, shall include a statement in the article that the research was performed under the oversight of an institutional review board or equivalent local/regional body, including the official name of the IRB/ethics committee, or include an explanation as to why such a review was not conducted. For research involving human subjects, authors shall also report that consent from the human subjects in the research was obtained or explain why consent was not obtained.” In the case of child users, in addition to consent from legal carers / parents, authors should describe how they obtained the oral assent from minors. Examples of such statements are “the study was approved by our Institutional Review Board” or “the study design, the experiment protocol, and the consent forms received approval from the Ethics Committee of our institution” (note that these statements must be anonymized). Additionally, during paper submission, authors will be asked to declare whether their research involves human participants, and if it does, whether approval from a relevant ethics committee was obtained.

We recognize that some researchers may work in jurisdictions where there is no mandated ethical review, or may not have access to an institutional ethics committee. In such cases, we will follow the ACM’s Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects, which lists a basic set of standards and practices that a research should follow, and states that “where such research is conducted in countries where no such local governing laws and regulations related to human participant and subject research exist, authors must at a bare minimum be prepared to show compliance with the above detailed principles.” In addition to the declaration mentioned above, the paper submission form contains also an optional question allowing authors to describe additional context related to human participant protection. If additional explanations regarding institutional review are needed, and in particular if no ethics approval was obtained for the research, the authors should answer this question with enough detail to show that their research was done in full compliance with the ethical research principles stated in the ACM Policy.

Policy on Use of ChatGPT or Similar Models

Text, images or any material generated from foundation models (LLMs, VLMs etc.), such as ChatGPT, must be clearly marked where such tools are used for purposes beyond editing the author’s own text. Please carefully review the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship before you use these tools. The SIGCHI blog post describes approaches to acknowledging the use of such tools and we refer to it for guidance. Note that the LaTeX template will default to hiding the Acknowledgements section while in review mode – please make sure that any LLM disclosure is available in your submitted version for review. While we do not anticipate using tools on a large scale to detect LLM-generated text, we will investigate submissions brought to our attention and desk reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked.

Furthermore, HRI follows the ACM Policy on Authorship. Please carefully review this policy. Any AI system, including Generative Models, such as ChatGPT, BARD, or DALL-E, do not satisfy the criteria for authorship of papers and, as such, also cannot be used as a citable source in papers published by ACM and IEEE. Authors assume full responsibility for content, including checking for plagiarism and veracity of all text.

Desk rejects 

Desk rejects are made during the initial checks of submissions to save our reviewers’ time. The main reasons for a desk rejections include:

  • Scope: clearly out of scope for conference (e.g. no relevance to robots or to human-robot interaction).
  • Anonymization: any violation of the rules detailed in the anonymization guidelines
  • Incomplete submissions: missing submission information (including an obviously placeholder title or abstract, etc.).
  • Formatting issues:
    • paper is breaking the full paper limit (eight pages excluding references);
    • using an incorrect submission format.
  • Other obvious issues, such as paper clearly unfinished, obvious use of foundation models for generating the contents, not written in English, etc.

Descriptions of Full Paper Tracks

Theory and Methods

The primary contribution for the Theory and Methods track is to further the conceptual foundations of HRI. This work helps us to expand upon the ways we think about human-robot interaction (theory) and upon the ways we engage in doing human-robot interaction research (methods). A key benefit of theory and methods work is not only in articulating what we know but there is also generating new ways of seeing the field and posing new questions.
Unlike in earlier years, this track will not include reproducibility. Reproducibility studies should be directed to the User Studies track. Theory papers focus on elucidating or connecting fundamental HRI principles beyond individual interfaces or projects, new theoretical concepts in HRI, literature reviews, etc. Such contributions may include meta-analyses of previous findings, narrative or philosophical arguments introducing theoretical or philosophical concepts, detailing underlying interaction paradigms, or providing new interpretations of previously known results.

Methods papers may include new ways of studying HRI, with focus on developing novel evaluation methodologies (e.g. new questionnaires), or in the analysis of existing research and methods derived from original or surveyed empirical research.

Successful papers in this track will clearly detail how they transform our current fundamental understanding of human-robot interaction and why the work is significant and has potential for impact. As appropriate, work must be defended by clear and sound arguments and a thorough reflective analysis of the contribution with respect to the existing state of the art.

We provide the following guidelines to authors about expectations for papers submitted to the theory and methods track:

  1. To the extent that methods papers might pertain to new metrics or methods of evaluation, they might include studies; however, the focus of the paper would be on evaluating the novelty and contribution of the concepts and methods, rather than in generalizable knowledge, which is typical of User Studies contributions.
  2. Theory papers are not expected to have user studies.
  3. Methods for generating design belong in the Design track; methods for measuring or studying HRI belong in the Theory and Methods track. Technical methods or tools belong to the Technical track.
  4. If the contribution is a clarification or improvement of an existing theory or method, the paper should likely be a Short Contribution.

Example papers (best paper winners / honorable mentions from previous years): Chen et al., 2024, Kim et al, 2024, Winkle et al., 2023

Design

The Design track brings together design-centric research contributions to human-robot interaction (HRI). This includes novel design approaches, new robot morphologies, behavior paradigms, interaction techniques, and the exploration of new contexts for interaction that yield unique or improved interaction experiences with or capabilities for robots. The Design track explicitly welcomes papers focusing on design solutions with rigorous detail, as well as papers on design-driven methodologies (e.g., participatory design, critical design, and design for manufacturability) that influence how designers approach HRI design. Research on the design process itself, or proposing new design products, strategies, frameworks, or models relevant to HRI, belongs in the Design track. Submissions must fully describe their design outcomes or processes to enable detailed review and replication of the design process. Further, successful papers will include evaluations appropriate to the work, such as end-user evaluation or a critical reflection on the design process.

We provide the following guidelines to authors about expectations for papers submitted to the Design track:

  1. While there are often studies in the Design track papers, the focus of these studies lies in evaluating novel aspects and features of the design and resulting response or behavior, rather than in generalizable knowledge, which is typical of User Studies contributions.
  2. If the main contribution lies in some aspect of the software or hardware capabilities, and less in how the context or use matches the hardware or software, the paper might belong in the Systems track.
  3. If the contribution is an implementation or improvement of an existing design, the paper should likely be a Short Contribution.

Example papers (best paper winners / honorable mentions from previous years): Koike et al., 2024, Walker et al., 2024, Taylor et al., 2024, Nanavati et al. 2023

Technical

The primary knowledge contribution of papers submitted to the technical track is expected to be a novel algorithm (formalized through pseudocode), mathematical model (formalized through a set of equations), tool, hardware element, or human-robot interface, and should provide enough detail to allow reproducibility. The expectation is that methods will be at an appropriate level of rigor, approaches will be robust, confounding elements will be clearly noted, and evaluations are suitable to the type of contribution; evaluations do not need to include user studies unless appropriate.

We provide the following guidelines to authors about expectations for papers submitted to the technical track:

  1. If a submitted paper contains a user study to empirically evaluate or demonstrate the primary knowledge contribution, authors should be clear in the paper why this paper is indeed a “technical” contribution rather than a “studies” contribution.
  2. If the novelty or main contribution of a paper lies in the integration of disparate hardware or software capabilities, the paper likely belongs in the Systems track; however, if the novelty or main contribution lies in a novel individual component of a possibly integrated system, then the paper is appropriate for the Technical track.
  3. If the novelty or main contribution of a paper lies in the development of a code-based implementation of an existing technical contribution, rather than the algorithm or model itself, the paper should likely be a Short Contribution.

Technical work may be evaluated in a variety of ways, non-exhaustively including proofs of correctness, proof-of-concept demonstration, evaluation in simulation (for example with an Wizard-of-Oz approach), performance evaluation of a novel sub-system or component, or user study. It is critical to ensure that the claims made by the paper are backed up by the evaluation. This means that while a well designed and appropriate user study with a deployed robot may be advantageous, it is not necessary. Further, a poorly designed and inappropriate user study presented in a technical paper may be worse than including no user study at all. However:

  • Authors of submitted papers whose evaluation does not support the paper’s claims (e.g., strong claims of an algorithm’s effect backed up only by a proof-of-concept demonstration or an underpowered user study) might be asked to revise their claims.
  • Authors whose paper does not contain a demonstration or study of a physical robot should provide a “pathway to deployment” describing what would need to be done to reach successful deployment onto a physical platform. Such papers will still need either an analytical or computational/empirical evaluation.

Example papers (best paper winners / honorable mentions from previous years): Mahadevan et al., 2024, Tung et al., 2024, Trinh et al, 2024, Brawer et al., 2023

Systems

Because HRI is by its nature an integrative discipline, the Systems track focuses on contributions which consist of a synthesis of underlying techniques and/or technologies to achieve system-level HRI behavior. Generally speaking, a Systems paper is one whose contribution is best observed and measured through performance of an integrated system, usually including a robot, rather than through component-level testing. This could involve some combination of novel system design or integration of novel techniques or components to enable new system-level functionality. The contribution of a Systems track paper could include demonstration of the usefulness of a component or technique in the larger system, achievement of new system-level capabilities, or enhanced system performance. Whether it belongs in these categories or others, authors should emphasize the novelty and significance of their contribution. In particular, authors should highlight what wider systems knowledge, best practices, lessons learned, etc. can be derived from their work and applied to future HRI problems. Papers’ evaluations should be appropriate to the systems contribution being presented, potentially including demonstrations based on scenarios or case-studies, user studies, or technical performance evaluations. Similar to the Technical track, a well-designed user study can help support a paper’s claims, but is not strictly necessary for acceptance.

Please note that:

  1. If the primary contribution of a paper is an algorithm or a mathematical model, or is best measured via component-level testing rather than a systems-level evaluation, then the paper likely belongs to the Technical track;
  2. If the paper’s contribution is about presenting a study to better understanding human behavior or preferences rather than system-level behavior based on integration, the paper may belong to the User Studies track;
  3. If the contribution is limited to a description of a system design or dataset, the paper should likely be a Short Contribution.

Example papers (best paper winners / honorable mentions from previous years): Padmanabha et al., 2024, Jenamani et al, 2024, Bouzida et al., 2024, Schoen et al., 2023

User Studies

The primary contribution of papers submitted to the studies track is expected to be new knowledge about human-robot interactions, based on a study conducted with people. These studies may take a variety of forms, including laboratory or field studies; other ethnographic and qualitative studies; exploratory, theory-building, or replicative studies; industry case studies, and so forth. These studies may use autonomous robots, Wizard of Oz, or may not involve a physical robot at all. In addition, like last year, reproducibility studies are included in this track. What is most important is the size of the knowledge contribution produced through this study for the human-robot interaction community. Because the primary knowledge contribution in this track is expected to be knowledge from a study with humans:

  1. If a submitted paper contains evaluation of an implemented system, it should be clear why the insights from the study with humans are the primary knowledge contribution rather than the system itself, and thus, why the paper belongs in the Studies rather than Technical or Systems track.
  2. If the paper’s main contribution is the creation of a new survey measure or other scientific tools, the paper likely belongs in the Theory and Methods track.
  3. If the paper’s main contribution is a design process, or the description of a series of design steps used to design a robotic system, then the paper likely belongs in the Design track. For example, if an author performs a series of co-design workshops, the resulting paper would belong in the User Studies track if the contribution of the paper focused on the scientific insights gleaned from the analysis of those workshops, but would belong in the Design track if the contribution of the paper focused on the quality of the design process itself.
  4. If the paper’s main contribution is the dataset rather than the experimental results themselves, the paper should likely be a Short Contribution.

Example papers (best paper winners from previous years): Pelikan et al., 2024, Kamino et al., 2024, Zhanatkyzy et al., 2023, Ligthart et al., 2022

Contacts

If you have any questions, contact the Program Chairs.

Program Chairs: Dražen Brščić (Kyoto University), Marynel Vazquez (Yale University), Vicky Charisi (Harvard University).

Email: pc2025@humanrobotinteraction.org.