Generation and Evaluation of Non-verbal Behaviour for Embodied Agents Call for Papers

Call for Papers

The 7th Generation and Evaluation of Non-verbal Behaviour for Embodied Agents
GENEA) Workshop
October 5, 2026 (in person)
Held in conjunction with ACM ICMI 2026, Naples, Italy
Website: https://genea-workshop.github.io/2026/workshop/

We are pleased to share the Call for Papers for the 7th edition of the
GENEA Workshop, focusing on the generation and evaluation of
non-verbal behaviours such as gesticulation, facial expressions, and
gaze – essential components of natural interaction with embodied
agents, including virtual agents and social robots.

Currently, behaviour generation is typically powered by rule-based
systems, data-driven approaches like generative AI, or hybrid
models. For evaluation, both objective and subjective methods are
used, though their application and validity are often debated. This
workshop aims to bring together researchers from diverse disciplines
working on various aspects of non-verbal behaviour generation,
facilitating discussion on advancing both generation techniques and
evaluation methodologies.

* Topics of Interest

We invite original contributions on topics including (but not limited to):

    Automated synthesis of facial expressions, gestures, and gaze
    movements, including multimodal synthesis

    Closed-loop / end-to-end non-verbal behaviour generation (from
    perception to action)

    Use of LLMs/VLMs in the context of non-verbal behaviour synthesis

    New datasets, annotation methods, and analyses of existing
    datasets related to non-verbal behaviour

    Cross-cultural and multilingual influences on non-verbal behaviour
    generation

    Cognitive and affective models for non-verbal behaviour generation

    Ethical considerations and biases in non-verbal behaviour
    synthesis

    Subjective and objective evaluation methods for any of the above
    topics

** Submission Types

We welcome:

    Long papers (8 pages)

    Short papers (4 pages)

All submissions should follow the double-column ACM conference
format. Pages containing only references do not count toward the page
limit. Papers must be submitted in PDF format via OpenReview and
formatted for double-blind review. To encourage authors to make their
work reproducible and reward the effort that this requires, we have
introduced the GENEA Workshop Reproducibility Award.

Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and included in the
ICMI companion proceedings.

*** Important Dates (End of day, Anywhere on Earth)

    Paper abstract deadline: 2 July 2026

    Full submission deadline: 3 July 2026

    Notification of acceptance: 23 July 2026

    Camera-ready deadline: 31 July 2026

    Workshop date: 5 October 2026

** Organisers

    Taras Kucherenko - Electronic Arts (EA), Sweden

    Alice Delbosc - Davi, The Humanizers, France

    Gustav Eje Henter - KTH Royal Institute of Technology / Motorica AB, Sweden

    Oya Celiktutan - King's College London, United Kingdom

    Eneko Atxa Landa - University of the Basque Country, Spain

    Jieyeon Woo - Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, South Korea

    Haoyang Du - Technological University Dublin, Ireland


For more information, visit our website, contact us at
genea-contact@googlegroups.com, or follow us:

** LinkedIn group
** @geneaworkshop.bsky.social (BlueSky)