Many Authors Had Papers Withdrawn by ICME for Using Proxy Presenters!
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Recently, I’ve seen many posts on Xiaohongshu about ICME proxy presentations being withdrawn:
This paper was submitted by a proxy presenter (i.e., not the actual author/speaker). However, the proxy did not obtain prior approval from the session chair before the presentation. According to the official ICME 2025 policy (https://2025.ieeeicme.org/conference-policies/
“A proxy presenter must request approval from the session chair in advance. After obtaining approval, the proxy presenter must explicitly state in the submitted paper who they are replacing, and this information must be provided to all authors and published on the ICME 2025 website. Failure to comply with the proxy presentation policy will result in your paper not being published in IEEE Xplore. If you believe this decision is in error, you may contact skmanna@conferencecatalysts.com by July 31, 2025, providing detailed information about your situation. Failure to respond by this date will be considered as accepting the decision. The ICME 2025 organizing committee will make the final decision on publication in IEEE Xplore after reviewing your feedback. You will be notified of the outcome via email. If you fail to respond within the deadline, the decision to withdraw your paper will be final, and you will need to contact IEEE Xplore directly for further inquiries.”
Some people say ICME has turned into a “paper slaughterhouse” — better not to organize it at all.
ICME shouldn’t be held anymore; it’s a paper slaughterhouse. Even if you send a proxy for a poster or oral, your paper won’t get published?? This is just killing off early-career researchers who saved up to attend the conference.
Others say this is the right way to run a conference:
This is correct. For such conferences, authors should attend in person — to present and also visit the location. Using proxies, especially en masse, just turns the conference into an online mess with no real engagement.
Personally, I think finding a proxy presenter can be reasonable, especially for researchers in China who often face serious visa and financial constraints. If the conference clearly stated in the submission phase that proxies are not allowed, then authors should follow the rules. However, if there was no clear policy stated during submission and the rule was enforced only later, then it’s quite unfair.
What do you think?
