Call for papers

The Learning Meaningful Representations of Life (LMRL) Workshop 2026 invites paper submissions presenting original, technically rigorous research at the intersection of machine learning and biological representation learning. Contributions that develop, interpret, or apply learned representations of biological data are welcome, and submissions that clearly demonstrate how these representations yield meaningful scientific insight or enable impactful real-world applications will be especially well-suited for the workshop. 

We encourage submissions across biological scales and data modalities, including but not limited to:

Data modalities (non-exhaustive):

• cellular and tissue morphology (e.g. microscopy, image-based profiling)

• omics (e.g. transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenomics)

• biological sequence data (DNA, RNA, proteins)

• perturbation-based assays

• spatially resolved data

• disease phenotypes and systems biology

Methodological themes (non-exhaustive):

• multimodal and integrative representation learning

• modeling biology across scales

• causal representation learning & interventional approaches to biological systems

• interpretable, mechanistic, and constraint-aware representations

• generalizability and interpretability in biological datasets

• generative modelling

• predicting perturbation response, dynamics, and prediction

• evaluation frameworks for the impact of AI methods in biology

• foundation models for biological data

• active learning for experimental design

Submission Tracks

Full Papers

• Length: 4–8 pages (excluding references)

• Scope: Comprehensive studies with clear descriptions of biological problems, AI methods, implementation details, benchmarking metrics, results and discussion.

Tiny Papers

• Length: 2-4 pages (excluding references; extended abstract format)

• Scope: Focused on work-in-progress, novel methodologies, or emerging ideas without requiring extensive results.

• Description: Since 2025, ICLR has discontinued the separate “Tiny Papers” track, and is instead requiring each workshop to accept short (3–5 pages in ICLR format, exact page length to be determined by each workshop) paper submissions, with an eye towards inclusion; see ​​https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2025/CallForTinyPapers for a history of the ICLR tiny papers initiative. Authors of these papers will be earmarked for potential funding from ICLR, but need to submit a separate application for Financial Assistance that evaluates their eligibility. This application for Financial Assistance to attend ICLR 2026 will become available on https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2026/ at the beginning of February and close early March.

• We highlight a dedicated tiny paper theme (other tiny-track submissions are welcome too):

  • New Benchmarks for Meaningful Biological Representations: Proposals of new benchmarks or evaluation frameworks that are relevant for the biological modalities and methods described above.

Review Process

• Double-blind review for all tracks.

• Full papers must nominate at least one author to participate as a reviewer; tiny paper reviewer nominations are optional.

• Submissions may be moved between tracks based on reviewer recommendations.

Submission Details

• A Latex template can be downloaded here.

• Meaningfulness Statement: we require each submission to include a brief "meaningfulness statement" (100 words max; does not count toward page limit), addressing the question "How does this work help us learn meaningful representations of life?" This is aimed to ensure that contributors thoughtfully consider the significance, impact and relevance of their work to the workshop.

• All submissions are non-archival but will be hosted online unless explicitly requested otherwise. 

• LLM Usage Policy: Please review and adhere to the ICLR 2026 policies on large language model usage.

• Please submit on OpenReview here.

• From OpenReview: New profiles created without an institutional email will go through a moderation process that can take up to two weeks. All authors should register their OpenReview profile early!

Key Dates:

• Submissions open: January 16, 2026

• Submission Deadline: February 4, 2026 (11:59 PM AoE)

• Decision Notification: March 1, 2026

• Camera-Ready Deadline: TBD

• Workshop: April 26th or 27th, 2026