Call for Papers

Important Dates

All dates are 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth).

• 4 December 2026: Submission CMT site opens
• 24 January 2027: Titles, abstracts, and author lists due
• 31 January 2027: Final submissions due
• 19 March 2027: Acceptance decisions and reviews released
• 30 April 2027: Camera-ready and presenter registration deadline
• 21–25 June 2027: NIME 2027, Paris (main conference 23–25 June)

Only papers registered by the title-and-abstract deadline can be completed by the final deadline. There will be no extensions.

Scope and Contributions

We welcome submissions of original research on scholarly and artistic use of new interfaces for musical expression. A non-exhaustive list of NIME-related topics is found below.

Topics

We invite original research on any aspect of new interfaces for musical expression. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Sensorial Symbiosis (Theme Topics)

• Relationships among bodies, instruments, machines, environments, and audiences in musical interaction, whether mutualistic, parasitic, intimate, asymmetric, or unstable
• Shared agency and authorship between performers and machines, including co-creative, adaptive, and machine-learning systems as musical partners
• Interfaces that extend, substitute, or reshape perception for performers and audiences, including multisensory, haptic, cross-modal, and physiological interaction
• Traces across time: memory, archives, documentation, re-performance, and the longevity of instruments, gestures, and signals beyond the bodies that produced them

Core Topics

• Novel controllers, interfaces, or instruments for musical expression
• Augmented, embedded, and hyper instruments
• Technologies or systems for collaborative and networked music-making
• New performance paradigms for mobile and web-based music-making
• Music-related human-computer interaction
• Sensor and actuator technologies, including haptics and force feedback devices
• Musical mapping strategies
• Relationships between motion, gesture, embodiment, and music
• Perception, cognition, and multisensory experience in musical interaction
• Evaluation and user studies of new interfaces for musical expression
• Accessible interfaces for musical expression
• Musical applications of robotics
• Interactive sound art, installations, and sonic interaction design
• Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and generative algorithms in musical performance and creation
• Software frameworks, interface protocols, and data formats for musical interaction
• Historical, theoretical, critical, or philosophical discussions about designing or performing with new interfaces
• The artistic, cultural, social, ethical, and environmental impact of NIME technology
• Pedagogical perspectives or reports on student projects in the framework of NIME-related courses
• Practice-based research approaches, methodologies, and criticism
• Co-design or participatory design of new instruments and interfaces
• Musical communities and practitioners beyond academia, including collaborations with them and ethnographic studies of them

Submission Requirements

Full papers must be between 2,000 and 6,000 words in length. The count covers the main text, including section headings, figure and table captions, and footnotes. It excludes the title, abstract, references, acknowledgments, and the ethical statement. The length and scope of submissions should be commensurate with the nature of their contribution. Contributions whose primary value lies in sharing an artifact, practical knowledge, or an idea through demonstration or discussion, rather than presenting a research contribution in paper form, may be better suited to the Artifacts & Ideas track.

Papers must be written in English. Follow the general submission instructions in preparing your submission.

Review and Selection

The review process is double-blind, meaning reviewers remain anonymous to the authors and vice versa. Every submission receives double-blind peer review by at least three reviewers. A meta-reviewer leads the discussion, writes a summary review, and recommends a decision. The committee chairs will make the final decision on paper acceptance and will inform the author(s) of their decision, presentation format, along with the reviewers’ comments.

NIME paper reviewers must follow this guide. Reviewers ask one guiding question: does the submission present a unique, important, and useful enhancement to NIME community knowledge? They weigh originality, significance, research quality and clarity, and judge empirical, technical, design, artistic, practice-based, theoretical and historical work by the standards of its own research tradition.

NIME depends on volunteer reviewers. We kindly request that the authors of each paper collectively agree to provide at least three reviews for other papers. To review for NIME 2027, sign up to review.

Presentation and Participation

All accepted papers are eligible for oral or poster presentation, independently of their length. Authors may additionally request a demonstration in the conference demo sessions. The Paper Chairs will determine presentation formats following review and in coordination with programme requirements. Presenting a paper as a poster or demonstration does not change its status as a peer-reviewed proceedings contribution.

Remote participation is available for oral and poster presentations. Remote oral presentations should preferably be delivered live and synchronously; remote poster presentations will take the form of asynchronous, prerecorded videos.

Publication and Archiving

Accepted papers will be archived in the main NIME proceedings, each with a DOI.

Ethics, Accessibility, Sustainability, and Inclusion

All submitted works to NIME 2027 should follow the  NIME Principles & Code of Practice on Ethical Research

Contact

For questions about paper submissions, please contact the paper chairs at papers@nime2027.org. For general queries about NIME 2027, please contact the general chairs at general-chairs@nime2027.org.