Review Process

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The submissions are reviewed by two committees:

• Program Committee (PC) Members assign external reviewers and make final recommendations for a subset of submitted papers. The list of PC members can be found here.
• External Reviewers provide an evaluation for a set of papers (around 6 papers per reviewer on average). Each paper is assigned to at least 3 external reviewers. The reviewers are recruited by the program chairs, and their competence is carefully verified in consultation with the PC members and senior MICCAI scientists.

Each PC member acts both as a Primary and a Secondary PC member:

• A Primary PC Member assigns the external reviewers. He/She knows the identity of the authors and manages the assignment of reviewers. He/She leads the discussion process with the external reviewers. Primary PC member ensures at least three solid reviews for each of his/her Primary papers, but does not make any recommendation or decision about these papers.
• A Secondary PC Member makes acceptance/rejection recommendations. He/She does not know the identity of the authors and makes a recommendation for papers that are a different set from his/her Primary papers. Each paper discussed at the PC meeting will have two independent recommendations from secondary PC members.

Note: The terms "Primary" and "Secondary" do not represent their intuitive meanings. They just mean two different roles. Separating the above two roles helps to eliminate inadvertent bias in final recommendations that might come from knowing the identity of the authors.

The review process proceeds as follows:

• Assignment of PC Members. Each submitted paper is assigned to one Primary PC Member and two Secondary PC members. The assignment is based on the preferences of the authors provided with the submission and on the content of the paper.
• Assignment of External Reviewers by Primary PC Members. The Primary PC member assigns at least three external reviewers to evaluate the paper. The assignment takes conflicts of interest into account by making sure that the reviewers are from different organizations and different regions/countries, and includes at least one senior researcher or expert in the subject. Primary PC members will make the best effort to assign the right peer reviewers for each paper.
• Review by External Reviewers. External reviewers work on their reviews without knowing the identity of authors. The Primary PC member monitors the build-up of reviews and contacts reviewers if their reviews are lacking in content or tone.
• Early Acceptance/Rejection. The papers for which there is consensus among the reviewers are accepted/rejected with no further discussion by the program committee. External reviews of those papers are sent to the authors.
• Rebuttal Period. For the remaining papers, the authors receive the external reviews and are invited to submit a short rebuttal.
• Discussion among External Reviewers. The Primary PC member engages reviewers in a discussion, urges them to consider the authors' rebuttal and to update their reviews and scores. The purpose of discussion is not necessarily to reach consensus among the reviewers but to eliminate misunderstanding and strengthen the reviews. Throughout the entire process, the Primary PC member refrains from influencing the external reviewers.
• Recommendation by Secondary PC Members. For each paper, two Secondary PC members make a recommendation about acceptance or rejection of the paper and may also recommend the paper for oral presentation and awards. When making the recommendation, Secondary PC members do not know the identity of the authors.
• Final Decisions. The program chairs compile all recommendations and the Program Committee finalizes acceptance/rejection decisions, oral talks and award nominations during the PC meeting. The award winners are decided later by the MICCAI award committee chaired by a designated board member.
• Notification of Acceptance. The authors are notified about the decision and are provided the external reviews and notes from the PC that offer additional information on how the decision was made. In the case of a procedural error, the authors may submit a formal complaint to the Program Chairs who will promptly investigate the case.
• Preparation of Camera Ready Copy. The accepted papers must be finalized for publication in the proceedings. Papers not received by the deadline will not be included in the program.