CHI 2025 — Papers Track, post-review report (Round 1)
NB — The numbers might not always work out here, there are missing data from the analyses due to conflicts.
This blog post covers how many papers were submitted to CHI 2025 and the outcomes of the first round of reviewing for the CHI 2025 Papers track and how many papers were entered into the second round of reviewing in December 2024. This short post provides analyses that might help to contextualise review recommendations across submissions. This post focuses mostly on Round 1 outcomes and we will provide further statistics about Round 2 and post-PC meeting discussions after the PC meeting in January 2025.
Increase in Submissions and Desk Rejections
Overall, we saw an increase in submissions to CHI 2025’s Papers track. This year we received 5,014
complete submissions. This is a significant increase compared to 2024 (4,046, increase of 24%), 2023 (3,182, increase of 58%), and 2022 (2,579, increase of 94%).
Of the completed submissions, 495 (9.9%) were desk rejected for various reasons ranging from non-compliance with anonymization policy, context, use of wrong template, scope, etc. The table below illustrates the number of submissions that were desk rejected for various reasons.
| Reason for Desk Rejection | # Submissions |
|---|---|
| Context | 187 |
| Anonymization | 134 |
| Template | 86 |
| Scope | 34 |
| Incomplete Submission | 19 |
| Miscellaneous | 16 |
| Length | 9 |
| Incomplete Paper | 5 |
| Plagiarism | 5 |
Subcommittee Load
Submissions to the CHI Papers track are made to one of eighteen subcommittees. These subcommittees have a topic focus (e.g., Health, Design, User Experience). The following chart summarizes
the number of submissions made to the various subcommittees in 2025.
Although the number of completed submissions to each subcommittee increased in 2025 compared to 2024, we saw a slight decrease of 3% in submissions to the “Developing Novel Devices: Hardware, Materials, and Fabrication” subcommittee. The range of increases in submissions across the subcommittees varied from an 8% increase in “Interaction Beyond the Individual” to a 47% increase in “Learning, Education, and Families”. Other subcommittees with significant increases in submissions include “Understanding People – Statistical and Quantitative Methods” (42%), “Design” (42%), “Critical Computing, Sustainability, and Social Justice” (39%), “Understanding People – Qualitative Methods” (36%), and “Understanding People – Mixed and Alternative Methods” (28%). The following chart visualizes the number of submissions to the various subcommittees in 2024 and 2025.
The following table provides a summary of the change in submissions to the various subcommittees in 2024 and 2025.
| Primary Subcommittee | 2024 | 2025 | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 273 | 331 | 21.25 |
| Blending Interaction | 262 | 333 | 27.1 |
| Computational Interaction | 260 | 297 | 14.23 |
| Critical Computing | 194 | 270 | 39.18 |
| Design | 264 | 374 | 41.67 |
| Developing Novel Devices | 126 | 122 | -3.17 |
| Games and Play | 146 | 163 | 11.64 |
| Health | 285 | 352 | 23.51 |
| Interacting with Devices | 276 | 330 | 19.57 |
| Interaction Beyond the Individual | 172 | 186 | 8.14 |
| Learning | 234 | 345 | 47.44 |
| Privacy | 190 | 234 | 23.16 |
| Specific Applications | 218 | 257 | 17.89 |
| Understanding People (Mixed) | 201 | 258 | 28.36 |
| Understanding People (Qual) | 239 | 326 | 36.4 |
| Understanding People (Quant) | 224 | 319 | 42.41 |
| User Experience | 287 | 329 | 14.63 |
| Visualization | 158 | 188 | 18.99 |
Review Scales
Before we go into the outcomes, here is a reminder of the scales that have been used during the CHI 2025 review process. Reviewers and ACs provide a recommendation (recommendation category out of 5 choices) and can further contextualize their recommendation based on originality, significance, and research quality (each a 5 point ordinal scale from Very Low, Low, Medium, High and Very High). However, the decision to qualify for a Revise and Resubmit depends on whether one of the ACs (1AC or 2AC) recommends a Revise and Resubmit.
| Short Name | Name On Review Form | Threshold for Revise & Resubmit |
|---|---|---|
| A | I recommend Accept with Minor Revisions | Yes |
| ARR | I can go with either Accept with Minor Revisions or Revise and Resubmit |
Yes |
| RR | I recommend Revise and Resubmit | Yes |
| RRX | I can go with either Reject or Revise and Resubmit | No |
| X | I recommend Reject | No |
Decision (After Round 1 Review)
Of all the completed submissions, including the Desk Rejects (DR), for 2025, 2,545 (50.8%) papers were Rejected (X1) after the first round of review, and 1,969 (39.3%) were invited to the Revise & Resubmit (RR) round. In comparison, in 2024, after the first round of review, 2,165 (54%) papers were Rejected (X1) and 1,620 (40.4%) were invited to Revise & Resubmit (RR) among the set of completed submissions.
The following chart visualizes the number of submissions that were Rejected in the first round (X1) and the number that were invited to Revise & Resubmit (RR) for 2024 and 2025, after removing all the desk rejections.
The following chart visualizes the number of submissions that were Rejected in the first round (X1) and the number that were invited to Revise & Resubmit (RR) only for 2025. If we look at the percentage of RRs in each of the subcommittees, we see that the subcommittees of “Visualization” (35%), “Computational Interaction” (39%), and “User Experience and Usability” (39%) were more selective with a lower percentage of RRs. On the other hand, the subcommittees of “Developing Novel Devices: Hardware, Materials, and Fabrication” (49%), “Specific Application Areas” (50%), and “Critical Computing, Sustainability, and Social Justice” (50%) had a higher proportion of RRs among their reviewed submissions.