In January 2026, we held a SIGCHI town hall to discuss the Digital Library (DL) changes accompanying the ACM Open transition. This town hall was instrumental in communicating invaluable feedback to the DL Board volunteers and ACM Headquarters. Thank you to those of you who participated!

Those of you who are following this conversation, you may like to read this piece that just came out in the CACM: https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/evolving-the-acm-digital-library/.

The article lays out the rationale that was shared by DL Board volunteers (Jack Davidson and Julie Williamson) in our town hall in January. It also lists changes that have been made or are underway. In particular, the use of AI was discussed heavily in the town hall, and an ACM Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the Responsible Use of AI has been set up and is meeting regularly, prioritizing these concerns.

SIGCHI President Neha Kumar is a member of this PTF, where she represents the SIGs, and if you have input on the responsible use of AI in the DL, she would like to hear from you. Please reach out at sigchi-president@acm.org to share your thoughts or to engage further.

We are excited to announce this year’s ACM SIGCHI awardees, Academy inductees, and Special Recognition recipients! See our 2026 awards blog post for the full announcement. The distinctions highlight remarkable achievements in scholarship, service, mentorship, and impact. We look forward to celebrating the recipients at CHI 2026 in Barcelona! A big thank you to the awards committee for reviewing nominations!

Dear SIGCHI members,

We’re excited to share about ACM Interactive Health (IH), a new SIGCHI-sponsored conference taking place this July in Porto, Portugal! We’re delighted that IH will offer a dedicated SIGCHI venue for work at the intersection of HCI and health. Please see the conference's call below for more details, including upcoming submission deadlines. Conveners of the conference have also written an informative Medium post on the scope of IH relative to other venues.

ACM Interactive Health 2026

July 5-8, Porto, Portugal

https://ih.acm.org/

About

The ACM Interactive Health Conference (IH) is a new conference that aims to be the leading venue for presenting work at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Health. The conference will welcome all kinds of work in this space, including but not limited to: the study of health practices; the development of methods and theories for engaging users and creating human-centered health technologies; or the design, evaluation, and implementation of health technologies to support health and well-being.

Participate

IH 2026 offers various ways to participate. Authors can still submit an extended abstract in the following categories:

• Short Forms - Presentations for new, emerging, and engaging contributions at the conference as a poster

• Demos and Exhibitions - Submissions for on-site demonstrations of interactive technologies

• Birds of a Feather - Informal meetings of 60–90 minutes for attendees sharing a common interest, without requiring attendees to previously submit a contribution

• Related Contributions - Papers previously published in other conferences or journals with an important message for the community, which will be presented at IH as a poster or short presentation

• Early Career Workshop - Applications for early career researchers (up to 5 years post-Ph.D.) to attend a one-day event to explore their professional activities and goals, learn from one another, and discuss topics most important to them

Moreover, the conference will not have a full paper submission track. Paper sessions at the conference will be mostly composed of papers accepted at the ACM HEALTH journal Special Issue on Human Centered Computing in Healthcare.

Submission deadlines:

• Short Forms: February 23rd 2026

• Demos and Exhibitions: February 26th 2026

• Birds of a Feather: March 5th 2026

• Related Contributions: March 12th 2026

• Early Career Workshop: April 1st 2026

Join us!

The organising team is extremely excited to bring IH to life. The HCI community has been discussing the possibility of creating a conference bridging HCI and Health for many years at the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) of the ACM – the largest association of computing researchers and professionals.

We hope you will submit your work and join us at the inaugural ACM Interactive Health Conference in Porto, Portugal. You will be joined by researchers, designers, practitioners, healthcare professionals, and patients to reflect and discuss emerging challenges and opportunities across the social-technical ecosystems of health and well-being.

For further details about the submissions, review, publication process, or general information about the conference, please go to https://ih.acm.org.