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<b>_______________________________________________________________________________________</b></div>
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<b>WAFL 2026 – Call for Papers</b></div>
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<b>4th Workshop on Advancements in Federated Learning (WAFL)</b></div>
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<b>Towards Trustworthy Federated Learning</b></div>
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<a href="https://wafl2026.di.unito.it/" id="OWAc5c2ea6a-3f08-7edc-e6e5-35875b0e90ac" class="x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>https://wafl2026.di.unito.it/</u></a></div>
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<b>Co-located with ECML-PKDD 2026, Naples, Italy</b></div>
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<b>_______________________________________________________________________________________</b></div>
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Dear colleagues,</div>
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We are happy to invite you to submit your work to the <b>4th Workshop on Advancements in Federated Learning (WAFL)</b></div>
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Please feel free to share this call with colleagues and interested researchers.</div>
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IMPORTANT DATES</div>
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• Submission deadline: <b>June 5th, 2026</b><br>
• Author notification: July 1st, 2026<br>
• Camera-ready: July 10th, 2026<br>
• Workshop: September 11th, 2026</div>
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ABOUT THE WORKSHOP</div>
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As machine learning systems become increasingly embedded in society, concerns around privacy, fairness, robustness, and regulatory compliance continue to grow—especially under frameworks such as the GDPR and the European AI Act (2024).</div>
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Federated Learning (FL) enables collaborative model training without sharing raw data, but also raises challenges such as adversarial robustness, bias from heterogeneous data, and limited transparency.</div>
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WAFL 2026 focuses on Federated Learning, bringing together contributions addressing fairness, privacy, robustness, accountability in decentralized AI and with a major focus on trustworthiness of federated learning systems.</div>
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TOPICS OF INTEREST</div>
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• Algorithmic and theoretical advances in FL<br>
• FL under non-IID data distributions<br>
• Privacy and security (e.g., differential privacy, adversarial/poisoning attacks, secure aggregation)<br>
• Fairness, interpretability, and explainability in FL<br>
• Decentralized and peer-to-peer FL<br>
• Transparency and accountability<br>
• Regulatory compliance (GDPR, EU AI Act)<br>
• Real-world applications (e.g., healthcare, finance, edge devices)<br>
• Tools and benchmarks for FL</div>
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<b> </b></div>
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<b>SPECIAL ISSUE</b></div>
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<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Selected papers will be invited to a special issue on<br>
<b>“Trustworthy and Responsible Federated Learning”</b> in <i>Discover Artificial Intelligence</i> (Springer):
</span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="https://link.springer.com/collections/fdcjaidaif" id="OWAf8e6b3ec-deca-96f5-2936-06370257b43a" class="x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>https://link.springer.com/collections/fdcjaidaif</u></a></span></div>
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SUBMISSION DETAILS</div>
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• Long papers: 12 pages + references + supplementary<br>
• Short papers: 6 pages + references + supplementary<br>
• Non-archival submissions allowed</div>
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Submissions follow ECML-PKDD guidelines and will undergo double-blind review.</div>
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Submission: <a href="https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/User/Login?ReturnUrl=%2FECMLPKDDWT2026%2FSubmission%2FIndex" id="OWAa77bb1bb-4441-7d33-343a-bb9bfb7dbc6c" class="OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable">
https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/User/Login?ReturnUrl=%2FECMLPKDDWT2026%2FSubmission%2FIndex</a> (select WAFL track)</div>
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Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and included (optional) in <b>Springer CCIS proceedings</b>.</div>
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<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">For more information: </span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="https://wafl2026.di.unito.it/" id="OWA23109beb-e823-05cb-c11a-d3e03eefb6b0" class="x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>https://wafl2026.di.unito.it/</u></a></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br>
Contact: </span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="mailto:franca.roccoditorrepadula@unina" id="OWAccfee5cb-b563-2ae1-0df9-74c0cbe24336" class="x_OWAAutoLink" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>franca.roccoditorrepadula@unina</u></a></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
</span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="mailto:mirko.polato@unito.it" id="OWA3fdba12e-193a-191e-7055-c6daec4a3016" class="x_OWAAutoLink" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>mirko.polato@unito.it</u></a></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
</span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="mailto:roberto.esposito@unito.it" id="OWAa44fd99d-7bd8-2a4a-955d-c3b5da002183" class="x_OWAAutoLink" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>roberto.esposito@unito.it</u></a></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
</span><span style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><a href="mailto:mfisichella@l3s.de" id="OWAf209fbdd-0e56-828b-e1c1-efe4865fccb5" class="x_OWAAutoLink" style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);"><u>mfisichella@l3s.de</u></a></span></div>
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Best regards,<br>
<b>WAFL 2026 Organizing Committee</b></div>
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