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ICNP, the IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols, is a premier conference covering all aspects of network protocol research, including design, analysis, specification, verification, implementation, and performance. ICNP 2020 is scheduled to be held in Madrid, Spain, from October 13 to October 16.

Coronavirus update: Based on the feedback from the ICNP community, ICNP 2020 proceeds as a hybrid event where a majority of the attendees are expected to participate online only, and a minority are willing and able to attend in person. The in-person component of the conference will be conducted in Madrid according to the best infection-prevention practices. Please contact the General Chair if you have any questions.

Important Dates

Abstract registration	May 19, 2020 (11:59 p.m. EDT)
Full paper submission	May 26, 2020 (11:59 a.m. EDT, i.e., Noon)
Notification of acceptance	July 25, 2020
Camera ready version	August 24, 2020

Technical Program Chairs

Roch Guérin (Washington University in Saint Louis)
Peter Steenkiste (Carnegie Mellon University)

Scope

The conference is soliciting the submission of papers with significant research contributions to the field of network protocol research. Both experimental results as well as formal investigations are equally welcome. Topics traditionally of interest include, but are not limited to:

• All aspects of network protocol research including design, specification, verification, implementation, measurement, testing, and analysis.
• Protocols for wireless networks, cellular networks, software-defined networks, data center networks, social networks, peer-to-peer networks, sensor networks, vehicular networks, and Internet of Things.
• Domain-specific solutions, including protocols for network security, routing, user privacy, and network management.
• Contributions to network architecture, e.g., specific algorithms and protocols for network virtualization or future Internet architectures.
• Contributions to other areas of data communications to the extent that they articulate a strong connection to protocols, for example by discussing potential implications on the design or performance of certain types of protocols.

Out-of-Scope

The "other areas of data communications" in the last bullet above should not be interpreted as a "catch-all" category. ICNP’s focus is on networks and their protocols, and while this encompasses a broad range of topics including aspects of design, analysis, measurement, architecture, etc., papers need to articulate some relevance to networking and protocols. Those that do not will be returned as out-of-scope. If you are in doubt as to whether your paper is a fit for ICNP, please reach out to the Program co-Chairs.

Formatting

Papers should adhere to the IEEE Conference formatting requirements using the templates available here, and should not exceed 10 pages excluding references. Your goal as an author is to produce a readable submission that complies with the formatting constraints. Violating the formatting requirements to squeeze in additional material will result in your submission being returned without being reviewed.

Plagiarism and Submission Policy

Papers must present original contributions and can neither be previously published nor under review by another conference or journal. Papers containing plagiarized material will be subject to the IEEE plagiarism policy and possible penalties, and will be rejected without review.

Submissions and Anonymity

Papers submitted to the conference will be reviewed through a double-blind review process, where the identities of the authors are withheld from the reviewers (and that of the reviewers from the authors). Achieving this goal requires some care to, on the one hand, preserve the anonymity of your submission, while on the other hand ensuring proper coverage of related past work, including your own. While this may seem challenging, the few basic steps listed below will go a long way towards achieving the desired outcome:

• Remove all authors' identifiers, e.g., names, emails, and affiliations, from the title page.
• Remove acknowledgments to and identifiers of funding sources.
• Use anonymous names for your files, as source file names are often embedded in the final output you generate, and therefore accessible as comments.
• When referring to your own related work, refer to it in the third person as you would with any other related work by another author.

Besides anonymizing your submission, double-blind reviewing also imposes additional requirements on both authors and reviewers. Specifically, while it is permissible for authors to give local talks on their work and release their paper on a non-peer-reviewed location, e.g., and institutional repository or even arXiv, care should be exercised to limit public exposure as much as possible. This includes refraining from advertising the work on mailing lists and public forums, and in general limiting as much as possible the odds that program committee members be exposed to the work and the authors’ identity. Conversely, program committee members will be advised to neither actively seek to “reverse engineer” the authors’ identity, nor to directly share with other program committee members any such information they may have acquired. All questions regarding possible breaches of the anonymity covenant that underlies the double-blind review process will be adjudicated by the Program co-Chairs.

Best Paper Award and Fast-Track Journal Publication

One of the accepted papers will be selected for a best paper award. Up to two of the best papers from ICNP may be fast tracked in the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, with a streamlined journal review process.

Presentation and Registration Requirements

IEEE ICNP normally has a requirement that at least one of the authors of any accepted paper must register for the conference at the full rate and be available to present the paper at the conference. However, the current circumstances are unusual and unpredictable and we take everyone’s health very seriously. If we have a physical ICNP event in Madrid, we would prefer if one of the authors attends to present the paper. However, independent of the format of the conference, we will accommodate requests by authors to present papers remotely, without physical attendance. The publication of the paper in the conference proceedings and in IEEE Xplore will not depend on attending the physical event in Madrid. However, any paper that is not presented by an author of the paper, either physically in-person or remotely, will be withdrawn from the proceedings and thus from IEEE Xplore. At least one author from each accepted paper will be expected to register in full whether presenting remotely or in person.