The UAI 2026 review form, explained

How UAI reviewers read your paper

UAI 2026 reviewers summarize the motivation and contributions briefly (mainly for ACs), rate five axes on 1–4 (originality, correctness, support of claims by evidence, reproducibility, clarity), list main strengths and weaknesses along those axes, give detailed comments, and choose a 1–10 overall score with a short justification and a 1–5 confidence. Judge the scientific contribution, not personal interest in the topic. Ethics flags are separate from the score.

• Detailed, specific and polite; avoid vague or subjective complaints.
• Judge the scientific contribution, not whether the topic interests you.
• Respect the character limits: summary and justification are a few lines each.
• Use the borderline scores 4 and 5 sparingly.

Where the bar sits. UAI historically accepts about 30% of submissions; no 2026 statistics are public. The reviewer instructions target at most 25% of papers at 7 (Accept) or above, so a mean around 6 is competitive and 5–6 is borderline.

The reviewer form, field by field

In the order reviewers see it, with every score and its official wording.

1. 01

   Summary And Contributions

   Free text

   At most 500 characters: the paper's motivation and key contributions in a few lines. Contributions may be theoretical, methodological, algorithmic, applied, empirical, connecting ideas across fields, or a critical analysis.

2. 02

   Originality/Novelty

   Score · 1–4

   Part of “Assessment Of The Paper” on the official form.

   How new are the main ideas?

   Score	Meaning
   4	Excellent The main ideas of the paper are ground-breaking.
   3	Good The paper makes non-trivial advances over the current state-of-the-art.
   2	Fair The paper contributes some new ideas.
   1	Poor The main ideas of the paper are not novel or represent incremental progress.

3. 03

   Correctness/Technical Quality

   Score · 1–4

   Part of “Assessment Of The Paper” on the official form.

   Technical soundness of the methods, proofs and experiments.

   Score	Meaning
   4	Excellent I am confident that the paper is technically sound, and I have carefully checked the details.
   3	Good The paper appears to be technically sound, but I have not carefully checked the details.
   2	Fair The paper has minor, easily fixable, technical flaws that do not impact the validity of the main results.
   1	Poor The paper has major technical flaws.

4. 04

   Extent To Which Claims Are Supported By Evidence

   Score · 1–4

   Part of “Assessment Of The Paper” on the official form.

   Do experiments, proofs, code and references back up the claims?

   Score	Meaning
   4	Excellent all claims are supported by very convincing evidence (in the form of comprehensive experimental evaluation, rigorous mathematical proofs, detailed (pseudo-)code, precise references, well-motivated and realistic assumptions) and the authors deliver what they promise.
   3	Good the main claims are supported by convincing evidence (in the form of adequate experimental evaluation, proofs, (pseudo-)code, references, assumptions).
   2	Fair the main claims are somewhat supported by evidence (but the experimental evaluation may be weak, or does not match entirely with the claims, important baselines may be missing, proofs contain important ideas but lack rigor, algorithmic details are only discussed superficially, references are imprecise, assumptions are not sufficiently motivated or explicated, etc.).
   1	Poor the authors fail to convincingly back up their main claims (e.g., if the experimental evaluation is flawed, proofs are lacking or invalid, references are missing, assumptions are not realistic, not specified, or not motivated).

5. 05

   Reproducibility

   Score · 1–4

   Part of “Assessment Of The Paper” on the official form.

   Could competent researchers reproduce the main results?

   Score	Meaning
   4	Excellent key resources (e.g. proofs, code, data) are available and key details (e.g. proof sketches, experimental setup) are comprehensively described for competent researchers to confidently and easily reproduce the main results.
   3	Good key resources (e.g. proofs, code, data) are available and key details (e.g. proofs, experimental setup) are sufficiently well-described for competent researchers to confidently reproduce the main results.
   2	Fair key resources (e.g. proofs, code, data) are unavailable but key details (e.g. proof sketches, experimental setup) are sufficiently well-described for an expert to confidently reproduce the main results.
   1	Poor key details (e.g. proof sketches, experimental setup) are incomplete/unclear, or key resources (e.g. proofs, code, data) are unavailable.

6. 06

   Clarity Of Writing

   Score · 1–4

   Part of “Assessment Of The Paper” on the official form.

   Organization and clarity of the writing.

   Score	Meaning
   4	Excellent The paper is well-organized and clearly written.
   3	Good The paper is well organized but the presentation could be improved.
   2	Fair The paper is somewhat clear, but some important details are missing or unclear.
   1	Poor The paper is unclear and very hard to understand.

7. 07

   Main Strengths

   List of points

   At most 3000 characters, organized along the five assessment axes above.

8. 08

   Main Weaknesses

   List of points

   At most 3000 characters, organized along the five assessment axes above. Be specific; avoid vague or subjective complaints.

9. 09

   Detailed Comments To The Authors

   List of points

   Detailed, specific and polite comments, questions and suggestions for improving the paper.

10. 10

    Overall Score

    Score · 1–10

    Ideally no more than 25% of papers at Accept (7) or above, 20% at Strong Accept or above, 10% at Very Strong Accept or above and 1% at Award quality. 4 and 5 sparingly.

    Score	Meaning
    10	Award quality
    9	Very Strong Accept
    8	Strong Accept
    7	Accept
    6	Weak Accept
    5	Borderline accept. Please use sparingly.
    4	Borderline reject. Please use sparingly.
    3	Reject
    2	Strong Reject
    1	Very Strong Reject

11. 11

    Justification For Your Score

    Free text

    At most 500 characters: the decisive reasons for the overall score.

12. 12

    Confidence In Your Score

    Score · 1–5

    How confident you are in your score.

    1. 5Very confident
    2. 4Quite confident
    3. 3Somewhat confident
    4. 2Not very confident
    5. 1Not confident
13. 13

    Ethical Concerns

    Free textoptional

    "No", or "Yes" with an explanation. The overall score should not depend on this answer.

Area chair meta-review

UAI ACs run the discussion, write the meta-review and recommend accept or reject to the PCs. The meta-review form itself is not public.

• Accept
• Reject

Policy on LLMs in reviewing