53rd International Conference on Very Large Data Bases Athens, Greece — Aug 23rd - Aug 27th, 2027

Call for VLDB 2027 Shadow PC participation

We are running the second iteration of Shadow PC with VLDB, which will follow the reviewing cycles of VLDB 2027 (Vol 20) submissions.

Quick info:

What is Shadow PC?

Following the VLDB Shadow PC 2026, we are organising a shadow program committee for the VLDB 2027 conference. The goal of Shadow PC is to give reviewing experience on real submissions to a top data management conference to the new members of the data management community. Shadow PC members will be able to see and review the submitted VLDB papers if the authors of those papers opt in to be part of the Shadow PC paper pool at submission time.

Shadow PC reviews will have no effect on the decisions of the VLDB PC and the regular VLDB PC reviews / comments will remain invisible to the Shadow PC. The reviews written by the Shadow PC will only be visible to the shadow PC members and may eventually be visible to the authors.

The VLDB conflict-of-interest rules will apply to shadow PC as well, and Shadow PC members will be required to comply with ethical code of conduct.

Why join a Shadow PC?

The VLDB Shadow PC is a great opportunity for those who are new to the data management community (from junior researchers to senior ones who may have started working across communities) to gain experience with the review and program committee process.

Besides the recognition of being selected to Shadow PC, serving in VLDB Shadow PC is worthwhile for several reasons:

How does the Shadow PC work?

Shadow PC members must commit themselves to writing their own detailed and rigorous reviews for papers assigned to them by the allotted deadlines. This timely review commitment is essential to the good functioning of the Shadow PC. Candidates who might be unable to fulfil their reviewing duties should refrain from applying. The Shadow PC members who miss more than 2 reviews will be eliminated from the Shadow PC over time.

To keep the load feasible, the Shadow PC will review one paper submitted to VLDB every other month starting from June. The paper pools and review timelines will mimic the VLDB 2027 review cycles and timelines, and we will be using CMT as the reviewing platform like VLDB.

The Shadow PC will receive feedback on their reviews by the Shadow PC chairs and have a chance to learn from the reviews of other Shadow PC members.

The authors of submitted papers can opt in or out of Shadow PC at submission time.

Here is the more detailed timeline:

Information & timeline for reviewing months:

How to become a Shadow PC member?

Our target audience are the people who are involved in the data management community through their research and wish to get some reviewing experience in this community but haven't had a data management conference reviewing experience yet. Therefore, we are looking for candidates that (1) have already published at a data management venue or an affiliated workshop and (2) haven't yet served in the program committee of any data management venue. You will need to submit your application at https://forms.office.com/e/XYihKj4UKq by April 8th, 2026 (AoE). The required information for the application can be found on the form.

Contact

For any further information, please contact the shadow PC chairs: vldb2027_shadowpc_chairs@o365team.itu.dk.