The 57th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2025), sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), will be held in Prague, Czech Republic from Monday, June 23 to Friday, June 27.

Papers presenting new and original research on the theory of computation are sought. Typical but not exclusive topics of interest include algorithms and data structures, computational complexity, randomness in computing, algorithmic graph theory and combinatorics, analysis of Boolean functions, approximation algorithms, cryptography, computational learning theory, continuous and discrete optimization, economics and computation, parallel and distributed algorithms, quantum computing, algorithmic coding theory, computational geometry and topology, computational applications of logic, algebraic computation, and computational and foundational aspects of areas such as machine learning, fairness, privacy, networks, data management, databases and computational biology. Papers that extend the reach of the theory of computing, or raise important problems that can benefit from theoretical investigation and analysis, are encouraged. The program committee will make every effort to consider a broad range of areas.

Submission format: Submissions should start with a title page consisting of the title of the paper, no author information (see below), and an abstract of a few paragraphs summarizing the paper's contributions. There is no page limit and authors are encouraged to use the "full version" of their paper as the submission. Each submission should contain within the initial ten pages following the title page a clear presentation of the merits of the paper, including a discussion of the paper's importance within the context of prior work and a description of the key technical and conceptual ideas used to achieve its main claims. This part of the submission should be addressed to a broad spectrum of theoretical computer science researchers, not solely to experts in the subarea. Proofs must be provided that can enable the main mathematical claims of the paper to be fully verified.

Although there is no bound on the length of a submission, material other than the abstract, table of contents, and the first ten pages will be read at the committee's discretion. Authors are encouraged to put the references at the very end of the submission. The submission should be typeset using 11-point or larger fonts, in a single-column, single-space (between lines) format with ample spacing throughout and 1-inch margins all around, on letter-size (8 1/2 x 11 inch) paper. Submissions deviating significantly from these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits.

STOC 2025 will use double-blind reviewing, and as such, submissions should not reveal the identity of the authors in any way. In particular, authors' names, affiliations, and email addresses should not appear at the beginning or in the body of the submission. Authors should not include obvious references that reveal their own identity, and should ensure that any references to their own related work are in the third person (e.g., not "We build on our previous work…" but rather "We build on the work of…").

The purpose of this double-blind process is to help PC members and external reviewers come to an initial judgment about the paper without bias, and not to make it impossible for them to discover who the authors are if they were to try. (In particular, to manage Conflicts Of Interests, author information will be available to the PC Chair, and possibly to a small set of PC Members on an as-needed basis.) Nothing should be done in the name of anonymity that weakens the submission or makes the job of reviewing the paper more difficult. In particular, important references should not be omitted or anonymized. In addition, authors should feel free to disseminate their ideas or draft versions of their paper as they normally would. For example, authors may post drafts of their papers on the web, submit them to arXiv, and give talks on their research ideas.

All submissions will be treated as confidential, and will only be disclosed to the committee and their chosen sub-referees. In addition, the program committee may consult with journal editors and program chairs of other conferences about controversial issues such as parallel submissions.

PC Member Submissions: Submissions authored or coauthored by PC members (other than the PC chair) are allowed.

Recommended Best Practices for References: Authors are encouraged to include hyperlink cross-referencing for bibliographic entries, theorems, sections, and so on, using for example the hyperref, cleverref, or varioref packages. If helpful, a table of contents may be added on a page immediately following the title page; this will not count towards the first ten pages.

Authors are asked to avoid "et al." in citations in favor of an equal mention of all authors' surnames. If the number of authors is large, consider writing "\cite{XYZ} show..." instead of "X et al. show". Bibliographic references should preferably be alphanumeric (e.g., the first letters of the authors' surnames, or at least the first three followed by +) followed by year of publication, instead of just a numerical reference. If using BibTeX, this can be accomplished by using \bibliographystyle{alpha} or \bibliographystyle{alphaurl}.

Conflict of Interest Policy: The submission process will include declaration of conflicts of interest (COI), to help manage the double-blind review process. This declared COI information can only be seen by the program committee chair and thus cannot be used by the rest of the program committee to deanonymize authors. (Notwithstanding, a small set of PC Members may see some of this information if their input is required in managing COIs.) STOC 2025 will use the following Conflict of Interest Policy, which combines aspects suggested by SafeToC (see here) and the ACM Conflict of Interest policy. Authors should limit their COI declaration to the following categories:

    Family member or close friend.
    Ph.D. advisor or advisee (no time limit), or postdoctoral or undergraduate mentor or mentee within the past five years.
    Person with the same affiliation.
    Person involved in an alleged incident of harassment. (It is not required that the incident be reported.)
    Reviewer owes author a favor (e.g., recently requested a reference letter).
    Frequent/recent collaborator, or recipients of joint funding (within the last 2 years or reasonably expected within the next year) who you believe cannot objectively review your work.

If an author believes that they have a valid reason for a conflict of interest not listed above, then they can contact the PC chair or any ToC advocate affiliated with this conference directly. Note that if the program chair has reason to doubt the validity of the claim of conflict of interest, then they may request that a ToC advocate confidentially verify the reason for the conflict. Falsely declared conflicts (i.e., ones that do not satisfy one of the listed reasons) risk rejection without consideration of merit. If authors are uncertain, they are encouraged to email the PC chair or a ToC advocate.

Submission Instructions: Authors are required to submit their papers electronically, in PDF (without security restrictions on copying or printing).

The submission server is scheduled to open on Oct. 1, 2024.

It is expected that authors of accepted papers will make their full papers, with proofs, publicly available on arXiv, ECCC, or a similar preprint service by the camera-ready deadline.
ACM is moving to require ORCIDs for all authors. An ORCID is an identifier that uniquely identifies an author. It connects an author's work even if there are variations in the names used on different papers, ensuring that the author gets credit for all of their contributions. Using ORCIDs will help ACM administer the ACM OPEN program where universities get open-access publishing via a subscription, aid in identifying conflicts of interests, and support other publications processes. ORCIDs are easy to obtain; it takes less than a minute.

Prior and Simultaneous Submissions: The conference will follow SIGACT's policy on prior publication and simultaneous submissions. Work that has been previously published in another conference proceedings or journal, or which is scheduled for publication prior to June 2025, will not be considered for acceptance at STOC 2025. The only exception to this policy are prior or simultaneous publications appearing in the Science and Nature journals. SIGACT policy does not allow simultaneous submissions of the same (or essentially the same) material to another conference with published proceedings. The program committee may consult with program chairs of other (past or future) conferences to find out about closely related submissions.

Presentation of Accepted Papers: One author of each accepted paper will be expected to register and present the work in the form of a talk at the conference. Authors are expected to contact the program chair before submission in case it is anticipated that a strong reason (e.g., international travel restrictions) would prevent all authors from attending the conference. Authors will also be asked to upload a recording of their talk in advance of the conference, to enable it to be viewed by people who cannot attend in person.