Challenge Submission
Submission of models and results via HuggingFace and evaluation pipeline; must adhere to 10-epoch training limit.
NLP/CORE Unranked
BabyLM Challenge 2026
The BabyLM Challenge at EMNLP 2026
The BabyLM Challenge 2026 is a shared task and workshop at EMNLP 2026 focused on sample-efficient pretraining of language models using developmentally plausible, human-scale data budgets. It aims to democratize LM research by enabling university-budget experiments that mimic child language acquisition, with updated datasets and a new MultiLingual track emphasizing English, Dutch, and Chinese.
Key deadlines
Verified September 9, 2026Full paper
July 21, 2026
AoE
Conference timeline
Submission and decisions
Full paperKey deadline
July 21, 2026 · AoE
Paper fit
Contribution paths
A strong submission should clearly identify its contribution and evaluate it appropriately.
Workshop Paper
Paper submission following CoNLL template (4-8 pages) with hyperparameter form; not required to follow challenge training limits.
ARR Commitment
Commitment of papers already submitted to ACL Rolling Review with reviews, to be considered for the BabyLM workshop.
Research areas in scope
01
Challenge Tracks
Strict (100M-word detoxified dataset)Strict-Small (10M-word detoxified dataset)MultiLingual (BabyBabelLM, 100M tokens total, focusing on English, Dutch, and Chinese)
Policies worth checking twice
- Challenge submissions must not exceed 10 epochs of training on their data.
- Workshop-only papers are not required to follow the 10-epoch limit.
- Submissions must include a HuggingFace link to the model and a download link to results generated via collect_results.py.
- Papers must follow the CoNLL template with 4-8 pages and include a hyperparameter form.
- Challenge submissions must be made via the Challenge OpenReview portal; workshop papers via the Workshop portal; ARR commitments via the ARR portal.
- Dual submission to other venues is permitted only if committed via ARR with existing reviews.
Official sources
Compiled from the official call for papers. The organizers’ pages remain authoritative.
Last verified September 9, 2026