Natural language processing (NLP) plays an essential role in several areas of software engineering (SE), and requirements engineering (RE) is no exception. Requirements are generally authored and communicated in textual form and different levels of formality, from structured (e.g., user stories) to unstructured natural language. In the last few years, the advent of massive and heterogeneous sources, such as tweets and app reviews, has attracted even more interest from the RE community, and the recent developments in large language models (LLMs) and generative AI have opened new opportunities for RE. LLMs will likely be the enabling technology for solving long-standing RE problems, such as traceability, classification, and compliance.

The main goal of NLP4RE is to represent a community- building venue for researchers who apply NLP technologies to solve RE problems and automatically support RE activities.

The 9th edition of the NLP4RE Workshop has been accepted as a full-day workshop, co-located with REFSQ'26. Check out the REFSQ'26 Conference here.

The workshop welcomes contributions regarding both theory and application of NLP technologies in RE. We also encourage contributions that highlight challenges faced by industrial practitioners when dealing with requirements expressed in NL, and the experiences of academics in technology transfer.

Moreover, this year we encourage submissions discussing the following topics:

• Agents for RE

  Studies that propose, design, experiment with, and evaluate proactive agents that support RE through natural language interactions with diverse stakeholders.

• Large Language Models (LLMs) and RE

  How traditional and recent RE tasks (e.g., issue classification, prompt engineering) can be solved with the new developments in LLMs and chat-based NLP solutions (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini), and how RE can help the development of LLMs.

• RE for NLP4RE

  Studies that propose RE-driven guidelines, principles, methods, taxonomies, and reference models to support the design, use, and evaluation of NLP/LLM solutions for RE research and practice.

• Education

  The integration of NLP4RE in the general RE educational programs, and how LLMs could change how we teach programming and other SE tasks.

• Ethical challenges in NLP4RE

  Studies on the impact of NLP4RE tools and techniques on humans and related ethical challenges.

Specific topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Technical Papers

8 pages (plus up to 2 pages for references), describing novel technical solutions for the application of NLP technologies to RE-relevant problems in the topics of the workshop, or evaluation of existing solutions and NLP4RE-relevant phenomena using, e.g., experiments, and other empirically sound research strategies. This type of paper also includes case studies, interview/observational studies, and systematic literature reviews.

Experience Papers

5 to 8 pages (plus up to 2 pages for references), describing practical experiences in the application of NLP technologies to RE-relevant artifacts. These papers should focus on retrospective reporting and discussion of lessons learned.

Project Report Papers

5 pages (plus 1 page for references), in which the authors provide an overview of their team's past, current or upcoming projects and research. These contributions include summaries of ongoing projects (EU, national, regional), which include an NLP4RE dimension, and preliminary project ideas for which the presenters are looking for collaborators. These contributions do not require novelty with respect to previous work, and are oriented to foster discussion and networking.

Vision Papers

5 pages (plus 1 page for references), outlining a roadmap for research in the workshop's topics, including industrial and research challenges based on currently available knowledge. We also encourage contributions highlighting challenges practitioners face when dealing with requirements expressed in NL, and challenges faced by academics in technology transfer studies or when applying/evaluating NLP4RE technologies in practice.

Tool Papers

5 pages (including screenshots and references), in which the authors provide a short description of an NLP-based tool for RE with screenshots and a clear plan for a demo at the workshop. These contributions do not require novelty with respect to previous work, and the authors can also showcase tools presented in past conferences and workshops. These papers will be evaluated based on the potential interest raised by the tool, and based on the clarity of the plan for the demo.

Conference-first Papers

1 page (including references), in which the authors present a paper previously presented at an international conference like RE, ICSE, REFSQ. The contribution should briefly summarize the content of the original paper. These contributions are oriented to foster dissemination, and will not appear in the proceedings.

Format and requirements

Submissions should be written in English and submitted in PDF format (page size A4, single column) formatted according to the CEUR Proceedings Style:

• Overleaf CEURArt Template (please use 1-column style): https://www.overleaf.com/read/gwhxnqcghhdt
• CEUR Template Download: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-XXX/CEURART.zip

It is required for at least one author of each accepted submission to register, attend the workshop and present their research to the workshop participants.

All papers will undergo a traditional single-blind peer-review process (3 reviews per paper) to check scientific soundness, adequacy to the workshop topics, and compliance with the required template. We plan to publish the accepted papers in the CEUR Proceedings, with ISBN number.