TL;DR

• ACM SRC accepts undergraduate and graduate student research in computing.

• Submission starts with a 500-word abstract, not a full paper.

• Each round has strict deadlines tied to specific ACM conferences.

• Winners from each conference advance to a Grand Finals round.

• Eligibility requires current ACM student membership at time of submission.

You have done the research. You have the data. Now you want to know whether your work is good enough to compete at one of computing's most respected student venues. That question is more common than most students admit, and it is a reasonable one.

The ACM Student Research Competition (ACM SRC) is a real, peer-reviewed competition hosted across dozens of ACM conferences each year. It is not a science fair. It is not a school assignment. It is a formal academic competition where student work is evaluated by active researchers in the field. Getting in requires understanding a submission process that is more specific than most guides explain.

This post walks through exactly how the ACM Student Research Competition submission process works, from eligibility to abstract format to what happens after you submit.

What is the ACM Student Research Competition?

The ACM Student Research Competition is an annual, multi-round academic competition run by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It gives undergraduate and graduate students a venue to present original computing research, receive feedback from experts, and compete for recognition at both the conference level and a global Grand Finals. Winners at each conference advance to a single Grand Finals judged by an ACM committee.

ACM is the world's largest computing society, founded in 1947. The SRC has been running since 2003 and is hosted at flagship conferences including SIGCSE, CHI, SC, and many others. Each conference runs its own SRC track, with its own deadlines and topic scope tied to that conference's subject area.

The competition runs in three rounds. First, students submit a short research abstract. Accepted abstracts advance to a poster presentation at the conference. Top poster presenters then give a short talk. The highest-scoring presenters at each conference advance to the Grand Finals, which is judged online.

Understanding the three-round structure matters before you write a single word of your submission. Many students prepare a full paper when only an abstract is needed at the first stage. That misunderstanding costs time and can result in a weaker submission because the abstract format has its own requirements.

Who can submit to the ACM Student Research Competition?

To be eligible for the ACM SRC, you must be a current student enrolled at an accredited college or university, and you must hold an active ACM student membership at the time of submission. ACM student membership costs $19 USD per year as of the current ACM membership fee schedule. You must be the lead author on the work, and the research must be substantially your own.

There are two separate categories: undergraduate and graduate. You compete only within your category. High school students are not eligible for the standard ACM SRC, which requires university enrollment. If you are a high school student looking for a comparable pathway, the process of publishing research as a high school student is a useful starting point for understanding which venues are open to you.

One important rule: you may only submit to one ACM SRC per competition cycle. If you submit to the CHI SRC and are rejected, you cannot then submit the same work to another conference SRC in the same year.

How to submit to the ACM Student Research Competition: step by step

The ACM Student Research Competition submission process follows a consistent structure across conferences, though each conference sets its own deadlines. Here are the steps in order.

1. Choose your conference. Go to the ACM SRC website at src.acm.org and review the list of participating conferences for the current year. Pick a conference whose subject area matches your research. A paper on human-computer interaction belongs at CHI. A paper on high-performance computing belongs at SC. Topic alignment matters to reviewers.

2. Confirm the abstract deadline. Each conference publishes its own SRC call for submissions. Find the deadline for the abstract submission, not the conference registration deadline. These are different dates. Abstract deadlines are typically two to four months before the conference itself.

3. Join or renew ACM student membership. Do this before you submit. Membership must be active at submission time. Go to acm.org/membership to sign up. Keep your membership number, as you will need it during submission.

4. Write your 500-word abstract. The abstract is the core submission artifact at this stage. ACM SRC abstracts must be no more than 500 words and must follow the ACM submission format. The abstract should describe the problem you addressed, your research approach, your results, and the contribution your work makes to the field. Each of those four elements needs to appear clearly.

5. Prepare supporting materials. Some conferences ask for a brief biography, a statement of your advisor's role, or a short list of references. Check the specific call for submissions for the conference you chose. Do not assume all conferences have identical requirements.

6. Submit through the conference system. Most ACM conferences use HotCRP or a similar submission management platform. You will create an account, fill in author details, upload your abstract as a PDF formatted to ACM standards, and confirm your ACM membership number.

7. Wait for notification. Review timelines vary by conference. Notification of acceptance or rejection typically comes four to six weeks after the abstract deadline. If accepted, you will receive instructions for preparing your poster.

If you are working through a research paper submission process for the first time, the broader guide on how to publish a research paper as a student covers the foundational steps that apply across academic venues.

If you want structured help turning your draft into a submission-ready abstract, Publication Compass is an AI platform built for exactly this stage: you upload your work, receive detailed feedback, and get guidance on where and how to submit. You can join the waitlist at publicationcompass.ai.

How to write an ACM SRC abstract that gets accepted

A strong ACM SRC abstract does four things clearly within 500 words: it states the problem, explains the method, presents the result, and names the contribution. Reviewers read dozens of abstracts. An abstract that buries the result or skips the contribution statement will not advance, regardless of how good the underlying research is.

Keep your language precise. Avoid vague phrases like "this paper explores" or "we look at." Write "this paper measures" or "we compared." Reviewers are computing researchers. They expect specificity.

Your contribution statement is the most important sentence in the abstract. It answers the question: what does the field now know or have because of your work that it did not before? One clear sentence is enough. Do not pad it.

Format matters as much as content. ACM has a specific LaTeX and Word template available at authors.acm.org. Use it. Submissions that ignore the required format are sometimes desk-rejected before peer review begins. Download the template before you start writing so your word count is accurate within the formatted document.

Understanding how journals and competitions evaluate research quality is connected to understanding what makes a contribution credible. The concept of peer review quality is also relevant when choosing where to publish your full paper after the competition. Learning what an impact factor means for student researchers helps you make that choice with more context.

What happens after your abstract is accepted?

Acceptance to the ACM SRC means your abstract passed peer review and you are invited to present a poster at the conference. You will need to prepare a physical or digital poster following the conference's size and format guidelines. The poster round is judged by a panel of researchers who visit your poster, ask questions, and score your work on criteria including clarity, originality, and your ability to explain your research verbally.

Top-scoring poster presenters are selected to give a short oral presentation, typically five to ten minutes, in a dedicated SRC session. This round is also judged. The highest scorers from the oral round are named conference-level winners in their category and advance to the ACM SRC Grand Finals.

The Grand Finals are judged online by an ACM committee. First, second, and third place winners in each category receive formal recognition from ACM, and their names are listed permanently on the ACM SRC website. Grand Finals winners also receive a monetary prize, as stated in ACM's current SRC prize structure on the official SRC site.

Preparing for the poster and oral rounds is a separate skill from writing the abstract. Practice explaining your work out loud to someone outside your field. If they cannot follow the core idea in two minutes, your explanation needs to be clearer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can high school students enter the ACM Student Research Competition?

No. The ACM SRC requires current enrollment at an accredited college or university. High school students are not eligible. High school students looking for peer-reviewed publication opportunities should explore journals specifically open to pre-university researchers, such as those listed in this guide to free journals for student research publication.

How long is the ACM SRC abstract?

ACM SRC abstracts must be no more than 500 words, formatted using the official ACM submission template. The abstract is the only written artifact required at the first round. A full paper is not submitted at this stage. Some conferences may request a short list of references in addition to the abstract body.

Do I need a faculty advisor to submit to the ACM Student Research Competition?

ACM SRC guidelines state that the research must be substantially the student's own work. Most conferences ask for a brief statement confirming the student's primary role in the research. Having a faculty advisor is common and encouraged, but the student must be the lead author and primary contributor to the work being submitted.

What conferences host the ACM Student Research Competition?

The ACM SRC is hosted at a rotating selection of ACM conferences each year. Historically, this has included CHI, SIGCSE, SC, ASSETS, PLDI, and others. The full list of participating conferences for any given year is published on the official ACM SRC website at src.acm.org. The list changes year to year, so check the current cycle before planning your submission.

What score criteria do ACM SRC judges use?

ACM SRC judges evaluate submissions on research significance, clarity of presentation, and the student's understanding of their own work. At the poster and oral rounds, the ability to answer questions confidently and accurately is also assessed. The exact rubric is not published publicly, but ACM's general guidance emphasizes originality and the quality of the contribution to the computing field.

The next step

The ACM Student Research Competition is a structured, credible venue for student computing research. The submission process is manageable once you understand that it starts with a 500-word abstract, not a full paper, and that conference selection and deadline tracking are the first practical decisions you need to make.

If your research is in a field outside computing, the process looks different. Guides on publishing biology research as a student and other discipline-specific pathways can help you find the right venue for your work. For a broader map of the student publishing landscape, start at the Publication Compass blog.