Call for Problem Statements

We invite researchers and practitioners to propose open research challenges that would benefit from broader discussion, diverse expertise, and new collaborations at the intersection of visualization, topology, and AI.

The objective of this session at TopoInVis Connect 2026 is to stimulate conversation across the community and create opportunities for future collaboration and cross-pollination among fields. We are especially interested in challenges that remain unresolved, expose limitations in current approaches, or could inspire new connections between theory, methods, and applications.

We will select three to four problem proposers. Each proposer will introduce their challenge in a focused five-minute presentation, clearly outlining the problem and the questions on which they would value the community’s input. These challenges will then provide the foundation for a structured discussion and collaboration session during the workshop.

We are looking for open problems, not presentations of completed research. A strong proposal might address:

• A fundamental research question that remains unresolved
• A practical problem for which existing methods are inadequate
• A challenge requiring collaboration across disciplines
• An emerging direction that deserves greater attention
• A problem that could benefit from new datasets, methods, evaluation strategies, or theoretical foundations

Your submission should briefly discuss the following questions:

• Why is this challenge important?
• What makes the problem difficult to solve?
• What kinds of expertise or perspectives would help?
• What outcome would you hope to gain from the session?

Selected proposers will present their challenge in a ~5 minutes presentation at TopoInVis, and participate actively in the subsequent discussion.

The objective is not necessarily to solve the problem during the workshop. Rather, the session will help clarify important questions, identify promising approaches, connect potential collaborators, and establish directions for future research.

Submission

• Submission deadline: August 30, 2026
• Notification to problem proposers: September 15, 2026
• Submission form: Submit a problem statement

We welcome proposals from contributors at all career stages and from a broad range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds. All deadlines are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone.