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HealTAC 2026
June 8-10th, 2026, Brighton (UK)
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1) Second call for contributions: deadline for all contributions: February 27, 2026
2) Keynote speakers:
Professor
Aline Villavicencio and
Dr Martin Krallinger
3) Workshop: ‘Free-text healthcare data and TREs’ (June 8)
The 9th Healthcare Text Analytics Conference (HealTAC 2026) invites contributions
that address any aspect of healthcare text analytics. This year’s theme is
Human-Centered AI & NLP: Bridging Research and Real-World Practice.
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Second Call for Contribution
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We invite submissions in the form of extended abstracts (up to 2 pages) describing methodological or application-focused work that has not been previously presented at
a conference. Submissions should be prepared based on a template that is available at the conference web site. This year, we will focus on
Human-Centered AI & NLP: Bridging Research and Real-World Practice,
so we encourage submissions in that space in particular.
We also invite submissions describing ongoing PhD research (at any stage) or planned fellowship applications.
The conference will provide an opportunity to receive constructive feedback from a panel of experts.
In addition, we invite submissions for software demonstrations, and new for 2026, we are also welcoming proposals for panel discussions.
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Keynote Speaker
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We are pleased to announce that the keynote speakers at HealTAC 2026 will be
Professor
Aline Villavicencio and
Dr Martin Krallinger (Barcelona
Supercomputing Center).
Aline Villavicencio is Professor of Natural Language Processing at the University of Exeter and a leading figure in multilingual and cognitively motivated NLP. She is General Chair of
EACL 2026 and has held senior leadership and editorial roles across major ACL conferences and journals.
Dr Martin Krallinger leads the NLP for Biomedical Information Analysis (NLP4BIA) team at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and is a recognised expert in biomedical and clinical NLP. He is widely known
for advancing benchmarking, evaluation, and community challenges that underpin state-of-the-art health-related NLP technologies.
Their detailed bios can be found on the conference website (Programme)
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Pre-conference Workshop
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The pre-conference workshop will focus on the safe and responsible use of free-text healthcare data within Trusted Research Environments (TREs). It will showcase new DARE UK–funded projects
(STAR-TRE, FORTRESS, TRExt, SAFETEXT),
highlighting emerging tools, guidelines, and community perspectives on enabling secure, privacy-preserving text analytics for healthcare research. See here (Workshop)
for more details.
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Key dates
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Submissions open: January 9, 2026
Deadline for all contributions: February 27, 2026
Notification of acceptance: April 17, 2026
Early-bird registration deadline: May 4, 2026
Pre-conference workshop: June 8, 2026
Conference: June 9-10, 2026
As in previous years, there will be a post-conference call to submit a journal length paper for further peer review and publication in Frontiers in Digital Health.
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Registration fees
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Due to generous support from our sponsors, we will keep the registration fee low as before: An early registration fee for students is expected to be £100 and for others £200. All registrations include the
full 3-day programme and lunches. Conference dinner (optional) will be separate. Students with accepted papers will be able to register for free.
More details on registration can be found
here. Travel and accommodation details are also available
here.
Follow the conference announcements on social media at #HEALTAC2026
We are looking forward to welcoming you to HealTAC 2026 in Brighton!
