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EasyChair

EasyChair is a web-based conference management system designed to streamline the organization of academic , workshops, and similar events by handling paper submissions, processes, program committee coordination, participant registration, and proceedings publication within a single integrated environment. Developed by EasyChair Ltd., a company incorporated in on October 18, 2006, it was founded in 2002 by Andrei Voronkov, a professor at the and visiting professor at , who serves as its CEO and primary designer. The system supports a wide range of models, from small workshops to large-scale events accommodating nearly 5,000 submissions, and is particularly prominent in fields such as , including subareas like the and bioinformatics. With over 4.6 million users and more than 121,000 conferences hosted, EasyChair is recognized as the world's largest based on metrics. It offers flexible licensing options, including a free tier for basic use and paid professional, executive, and VIP plans that unlock advanced features optimized for high-volume events. Beyond core conference functions, EasyChair extends to related services such as society management, journal article reviewing, and membership administration, making it a versatile tool for academic and professional communities. Its design emphasizes user-friendliness and adaptability, allowing organizers to customize workflows while minimizing administrative overhead, which has contributed to its adoption by thousands of top-tier conferences globally.

Overview

Description

EasyChair is a Perl-based web application developed specifically for managing academic conference workflows, with a focus on facilitating abstract and paper submissions. It serves as an integrated platform that enables organizers to handle the logistical aspects of scientific events efficiently, from initial call for papers to the coordination of peer review processes. The primary components of EasyChair include an online submission portal that allows authors to upload and manage their contributions, automated tools for assigning and tracking reviewer evaluations, and basic administrative interfaces for conference chairs to monitor progress and make decisions. These elements work together to create a streamlined environment that reduces manual overhead in conference organization. Built by Andrei Voronkov, the system's technical foundation relies on Perl scripting, initially distributed in an open-source-like manner where users could request source code copies for local deployment. Over time, it has evolved into a proprietary service hosted centrally, offering enhanced reliability and support without requiring self-hosting. EasyChair accommodates distinct user roles to ensure secure and role-appropriate access: authors use the platform to submit and revise papers, reviewers access assigned submissions for evaluation and feedback, and program chairs oversee the entire workflow, including committee management and final selections.

Purpose and Scope

EasyChair is designed primarily for managing academic conferences in and related fields, such as , , and bioinformatics, where it facilitates the handling of paper submissions, , and program committee coordination. Its architecture supports the complexities of scholarly events, including workshops and symposia, by providing tools tailored to research dissemination and evaluation processes. While adaptable to other scientific disciplines like health sciences through customizable workflows, EasyChair's scope is limited to academic and professional events focused on peer-reviewed content, handling up to thousands of submissions per conference to accommodate both small workshops and large international gatherings. It is not intended for non-academic applications, such as corporate meetings or general event planning, due to its emphasis on scholarly submission and review protocols rather than broader logistical needs. The system's key purposes include streamlining the process to alleviate administrative burdens on organizers and enabling global collaboration among distributed program committees, allowing reviewers from around the world to participate efficiently. This focus reduces manual oversight by automating assignment and tracking, thereby enhancing efficiency for . In differentiation from general conference management systems, EasyChair prioritizes through specialized features like double-blind reviewing, which conceals author identities during evaluation, and automated conflict-of-interest detection to ensure unbiased assessments. These elements make it particularly suited for maintaining the rigor of scientific discourse, unlike more generic platforms that may lack such domain-specific safeguards.

History

Founding and Early Development

EasyChair was founded in 2002 by Andrei Voronkov, a professor of computer science at the University of Manchester, as a response to the challenges he encountered while serving as program chair for the conferences on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning (LPAR) and Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE). These events, focused on computational logic and automated reasoning, highlighted the inefficiencies of manual paper submission and review processes prevalent at the time, prompting Voronkov to develop a dedicated tool for academic conference management. The initial version of EasyChair began as a small collection of custom scripts designed from scratch to handle basic tasks such as submissions and reviewer assignments, directly addressing the labor-intensive workflows Voronkov managed for LPAR and CADE. This early implementation was released as a free, open service, initially hosted on university servers to support the scientific community without cost barriers. By 2003, it was successfully deployed for LPAR, where positive feedback from organizers led to requests for access, marking the beginning of its adoption beyond Voronkov's personal use. Throughout its early years, EasyChair's codebase underwent iterative enhancements driven by input from these initial users, evolving from rudimentary scripts into a more robust system while remaining focused on core submission and review functionalities. By the mid-2010s, the codebase had expanded to approximately 290,000 lines of , reflecting ongoing refinements to improve reliability and based on practical experiences from early adopters in and fields.

Key Milestones and Evolution

In 2012, EasyChair introduced publishing capabilities specifically for , enabling organizers to disseminate accepted papers freely online without subscription barriers. By , the platform had surpassed the management of 41,000 conferences, which necessitated significant refinements to enhance and support the growing volume of submissions and reviews. In 2016, publishing was extended to conferences across all scientific disciplines, broadening its utility beyond . That same year, Andrei Voronkov was notified as a person with significant control for the company behind EasyChair, which had been incorporated on 18 2006 in , , originally as Cool Press Ltd and renamed EasyChair Ltd on 20 March 2018. In 2019, EasyChair achieved a user base of 2.5 million, coinciding with the addition of multilingual support to accommodate global participants and improved mobile accessibility for on-the-go management of tasks.

Features and Functionality

Core Conference Management

EasyChair's core conference management revolves around a streamlined submission process that enables authors to upload papers through intuitive web forms. Authors begin by creating an account and submitting an abstract, followed by the full paper, which supports standard formats such as PDF for final versions and source files like LaTeX (.zip) or Microsoft Word (.docx) for drafts. Metadata fields, including titles, authors, keywords, and topic selections, are captured during upload to facilitate categorization and assignment. The system provides version control, allowing authors to revise and resubmit drafts before deadlines while maintaining a history of changes, and offers real-time status tracking for submissions. Review management in EasyChair employs automated algorithms for assigning submissions to reviewers based on program committee (PC) member preferences, , and conflict-of-interest declarations to ensure equitable distribution. Customizable review forms allow chairs to define criteria, such as numerical scores for overall quality, confidence levels (e.g., 1-5 scale), and suitability ratings (e.g., from -3 to 3), alongside open text fields for detailed comments. Reviewers submit evaluations online, with tools for tracking progress, and the platform supports phases like author rebuttals where submitters can respond to initial feedback before final decisions. Online discussion forums enable PC members to debate papers collaboratively, aggregating scores and comments into summary reports for . Program committee tools feature role-based dashboards that grant chairs oversight of the entire , including setting and enforcing deadlines for submissions, reviews, and rebuttals via configurable timelines. Chairs can manage PC memberships by inviting experts, handling acceptances/declines, and maintaining a reviewer database with profile updates. is integrated, allowing declarations of interests (e.g., co-authorship or institutional affiliations) to automatically exclude incompatible assignments. Reporting capabilities include generating statistics on submission volumes, review completion rates, score distributions, and acceptance ratios, exportable for analysis. Workflow customization in EasyChair accommodates diverse conference needs through options for single-blind or double-blind reviewing, where author identities can be masked from reviewers and vice versa to promote . Organizers can configure multiple review rounds, such as initial followed by primary reviews, discussions, and rebuttals, with adjustable phases for hybrid or multi-track events. Email notifications are automated throughout, alerting users to deadlines, assignments, review requests, and decision outcomes, ensuring efficient coordination without manual intervention.

Publishing and Additional Tools

EasyChair facilitates the publishing of through its automated system, which generates volumes directly from accepted papers. Organizers can produce proceedings in PDF and formats using the platform's class file or Word styles to ensure uniformity. Each article receives a (DOI) for persistent linking, and volumes are archived in EasyChair's repository as part of the (EasyChair Proceedings and Collections) series, which spans multiple disciplines such as computing, education, and health sciences. The platform's registration system supports integrated attendee management, allowing organizers to create customizable forms for sign-ups tailored to specific needs, including varying fees by registration type or period. Payments are processed securely in 14 currencies, with options for wire transfers in 8 currencies and low-rate settlements to handle cross-currency transactions efficiently. This setup enables seamless attendee tracking and revenue collection without external tools. Beyond core management, EasyChair offers supplementary tools like Smart CFP, which enables organizers to distribute calls for papers rapidly to its network of approximately 2 million users, reaching 1.8 million monthly visitors through searchable listings by topic, country, or tags. Additionally, Smart Slide provides a dedicated platform for authors to upload and share slides, preserving such as author details, abstracts, and keyphrases, allowing global access and downloads before, during, and after events to enhance . EasyChair integrates with to support author identification, where users can include their ORCID iD in submissions and profiles, facilitating accurate attribution and linking in proceedings outputs. For long-term preservation, published volumes in the series are indexed and archived in external repositories including , , , and , ensuring discoverability and accessibility over time.

Adoption and Business Model

Usage Statistics and Impact

As of November 2025, EasyChair boasts over 4.6 million registered users, has managed more than 121,000 conferences, and facilitated the production of over 21,000 publications. These figures underscore its extensive adoption within the academic community for streamlining conference organization and scholarly output. EasyChair has significantly impacted academia by automating a substantial portion of administrative tasks, such as submission handling, peer review coordination, and program scheduling, thereby reducing the time burden on organizers and enabling focus on substantive academic activities. During the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic, its online infrastructure supported the rapid shift to virtual and hybrid events, allowing conferences to continue seamlessly through digital submission and review processes amid travel restrictions and health concerns. The platform exhibits strong global reach, with predominant usage in Europe and North America—evidenced by high activity in countries like the , , , , and —while experiencing growing adoption in , including leading contributions from , , and . It supports conferences across more than 100 countries, promoting collaboration in diverse research ecosystems. Notably, EasyChair has enabled faster research dissemination in fields such as and health sciences, where its preprint services and conference management tools have accelerated the sharing of timely findings, contributing to shorter research cycles and broader knowledge exchange in these high-impact areas.

Licensing and Commercial Aspects

EasyChair transitioned from a fully service for standard conference management to a model in 2022, introducing paid licenses while retaining limited options for small events with up to 20 submissions. The current pricing is subscription-based and tiered by type, with costs calculated per submission to reflect size, offering full features such as advanced reviewing, proceedings publication, and . The limits users to basic submission and review tools for events under 20 submissions, while the professional license ($3.90 per submission) suits small to medium up to 60 submissions with added export and multi-track capabilities. and VIP licenses, starting at $6.10 and $10.80 per submission respectively (with volume discounts up to 40% for 1,000+ submissions, reducing to as low as $3.70 per submission for plans), provide unlimited scale, , dedicated , and multi- for larger events; for example, a with 500 submissions under an fixed-price plan costs approximately $2,150. Payment options include pay-as-you-go, fixed prepayment, or deposit models, with volume discounts available for academic societies through custom agreements. EasyChair is operated by EasyChair Ltd., a private company incorporated in on October 18, 2006, with its registered office in . The company sustains its operations through these licensing fees and offers integrated publishing services via its Series in Computing and Kalpa Publications in , , and Healthcare, enabling open-access proceedings for conferences. Additionally, EasyChair facilitates proceedings publication in partnership with external academic publishers, such as the Electronic Proceedings in (EPTCS), where it handles submissions and reviews for many volumes. The platform's commercial model supports its adoption by prominent events, including workshops at major conferences like NeurIPS and ICML, as well as specialized regional and international gatherings in logic, , and computation, such as those under EPTCS auspices.

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