Important dates
Oct 24, 2025
Submission deadline
Dec 16, 2025
First round notification
Dec 23, 2025
Rebuttal deadline
Feb 13, 2026
Final notification
Mar 6, 2026
Final versions due
May 25, 2026
Conference begins
Call for Papers
General information
PKC 2026 will take place in West Palm Beach, USA on May 25-28, 2026. PKC 2026 is organized by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR). The proceedings will be published by Springer in the LNCS series.
Original research papers on all aspects of public-key cryptography, covering theory, implementations and applications, and related fields, are solicited for submission to PKC 2026. In more detail, areas of interest include research on:
- public key schemes, such as their design and analysis (including side channel attacks), from its math to actual systems;
- the design, proposal, and analysis of cryptographic primitives and protocols;
- public-key techniques in MPC or other protocols
This year, we particularly welcome submissions on the theme of “Mathematics of Public-key Cryptography". These submissions must still meet the acceptance criteria for PKC above. Please note that pure information-theoretic and symmetric key subjects (e.g., block cipher design and attacks) are not in scope.
Program committee members are permitted to submit either 3 co-authored papers, or at most 4 co-authored papers all with students.
We expect registered participants to attend the conference and present their work in person. However, we will provide options for remote presentation if necessary. For each accepted paper, we require at least one regular registration from an author."
Schedule
PKC 2026 will operate a two-round review system with rebuttal phase. In the first round, the program committee selects the submissions which are considered of value for proceeding to the second round, and the authors receive the first round notification with review comments. The authors of the selected submissions are invited to submit a text-based rebuttal letter to the review comments.
The submissions that have not been selected during the first round of reviews may be submitted in other conferences after the first round notification date.
In the second round the program committee further reviews the selected submissions by taking into account their rebuttal letter. They then make the final decision of acceptance or rejection.
Awards
The Program Committee may choose a paper to receive an overall best paper award. In a continuing effort to promote independent work by researchers at an early stage in their career, the program committee may also award a prize for the best paper authored exclusively by early-career researchers. To be eligible, all co-authors must be studying full/part-time or have received their degree in 2020 or later. As usual, awards will only be given if deserving papers are identified.
Stipends
Students whose papers have been accepted and who present their talks at the conference will have their registration waived. A limited number of stipends are available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students, whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves, are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be sent to the general chairs.
Program committee
Program co-chairs
pkc2026programchairs @ iacr dot org
General co-chairs
pkc2026 @ iacr dot org