The 48th PIERS (PhotonIcs and Electromagnetics Research Symposium) will be held on July 27 - 31, 2026 (from Monday to Friday) in Suzhou, China. Kindly be aware that this will be an in-person PIERS without virtual talks.

PIERS is a major global symposium committed to advancing photonics and electromagnetics for the benefit of humanity. PIERS is sponsored by The Electromagnetics Academy, founded by the late Professor Jin Au Kong (1942-2008) of MIT in 1989. The Electromagnetics Academy is a non-profit organization registered in the USA.

This in-person PIERS is now accepting new abstract submissions. The abstract submission deadline has been extended to March 10, 2026. The pre-registration deadline is April 20, 2026. The preliminary program will be available by May 25. The final program will be available by June 25. 

1 PIERS Subcommittees and Topics

PIERS: PhotonIcs and Electromagnetics Research Symposium, also known as Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, provides an international forum for reporting progress and recent advances in the scientific theories and experiments and the technologies of electromagnetics and photonics.

PIERS scope includes electromagnetic theory, quantum electromagnetics, optics, photonics, plasmonics, metamaterials, antennas, microwaves, computational electromagnetics, electromagnetic compatibility, scattering, random media, remote sensing, radars, radiometry, imaging, radiative transfer, inverse problems, machine learning, quantum optics, material effects, acoustics, and all other modern developments.

Five Subcommittees with 59 topics have been formed since 2013; however, the topics are not limited to these areas.

2 Focus & Special Sessions

In July, PIERS 2026 Suzhou, a dozen Focus Sessions will be planned. Each focus Session should focus on a specific hot topic that is timely and reflects future trends or the latest scientific advances in the area. The conference leadership will select the topics for focus sessions and the responsible organizers. The organizers may adjust the title of the focus session to make it, e.g., more specific/focused and should make the best effort to ensure the high quality of the session by inviting high-profile keynote speakers (30 min for each; 0-2 keynote speakers for each focus session) and excellent invited speakers (20 min for each), etc. Some contributed oral talks (15 min each) are encouraged; however, the organizers must maintain very strict quality control, with a typical acceptance ratio of less than 50%. Each focus session will last for a half-day (with a coffee break) or a full-day (with a lunch break and two coffee breaks).

Please visit the list of confirmed focus & special sessions on this page.

3 Keynote Speakers

High-profile Keynote speakers need to be approved by the PIERS Conference Quality Committee in advance. Before the session organizers send out the invitation to the keynote speaker, please email the name and web link of the keynote speaker to the PIERS OFFICE for approval in advance. The list of confirmed keynote speakers will be highlighted on this website.

4 Young Scientist Program

Best Student Presentation Award 2026

Starting from PIERS 2025 Spring, we encourage all students to join the EM Academy's educational program and compete for the Best Student Presentation Awards (BSPTA).
As part of our EM Academy's educational efforts, we encourage professors to train their students well in both effective oral and poster presentations. Thus, we encourage all graduate students to participate in a 3-minute Oral Presentation before the Poster Session on the same day. If the presenting author is a student, the paper (if accepted and selected) will be scheduled for a mini-oral presentation session before the Poster Session, where a committee will interact with these students on the same day. To encourage graduate students to participate in this activity, a sufficient number of students who performed well in both the oral and poster presentations will be selected for awards.  The committee will discuss and vote for the winners of the Best Student Presentation Awards on the same day. Each winner will receive a cash award and a banquet ticket to attend the Award Ceremony. The total number of final winners will increase based on final program enrollment.
Please visit here for more detailed information about the Best Student Presentation Awards (BSPTA).

Young Scientist Award 2026

The Young Scientist Award (YSA) offers a broader young scientist program than the BSPA. To qualify for the YSA, the applicant must have a PhD degree in science/engineering and be under 35 years of age by the conference date. The applicant must be listed as the first author as well as the presenting author of a paper submitted for oral presentation. A curriculum vitae with a publication list must be submitted together with the abstract. This full-length paper can be either unpublished or published within one year before the conference dates. If it is an arXiv paper, it should also be archived within one year before the conference. For this PIERS 2026 in Suzhou, the published date should be after July 26, 2025.  Awardees will be selected after peer review of the applications by the PIERS Young Scientist Program Committee.

The BPSA/YSA full papers are to be reviewed only by the judges. After the conference, authors can choose to publish or not to publish their papers in PIERS Proceedings on IEEE Xplore.

Best Session Organizer Award 2026

The Best Session Organizer Award (BSOA) has been established since 2021 to award some session organizers for their outstanding contributions and services to the PIERS conference of that year. All organized sessions are evaluated by the PIERS Award Committee and the chairs of the Technical Program Committee. The 5 best sessions will be selected at the July PIERS 2026 in Suzhou.

All 5 best sessions will be announced at the Award Ceremony during the Banquet, and each awarded session will receive a cash award. The awarded organizer who can participate in the event onsite will receive a certificate and one free banquet ticket to attend the Award Ceremony.

Session Organizer Award 2026

The Session Organizer Award (SOA) has been established since 2021 to award some session organizers for their excellent contributions and services to the PIERS conference of that year. All sessions are evaluated by the PIERS Award Committee together with Chairs of the Technical Program Committee, and 1 - 2 sessions per subcommittee will be selected at the November PIERS 2026 in Suzhou.

All the recipients of the Session Organizer Awards will be announced at the Award Ceremony during the Banquet, and each of them will receive a certificate. Each awarded organizer who can participate onsite will also receive one free banquet ticket to attend the Award Ceremony.

5 Abstract Submission Deadline - February 10, 2026

Authors are invited to submit a one-page abstract in English with at least 250 words. A full-length paper is not required for technical participation in PIERS. The abstract should clearly explain the content and relevance of the proposed technical contribution. On a separate page, please list the following information: (1) Title of the paper, (2) Name, affiliation, and email address of each author, (3) Corresponding author and Presenting author, (4) Topic or Session Organizer, if applicable, (5) State if poster presentation is preferred. Co-authors of the abstract will be informed about the paper submission. The abstract may not be posted on the PIERS review system and online program until the email addresses of all co-authors are submitted.

Each contributed talk will be 15 minutes in this PIERS 2026 Suzhou. Please visit the Author's Guidelines for more detailed instructions on paper submission.

6 Full-length Paper Submission Deadline - April 25, 2026

The author of an accepted abstract is invited (but not required) to submit a full paper of 3–10 pages. Full papers will be reviewed by session organizers and/or TPC members. Accepted and presented full papers will be included in the final PIERS proceedings after the conference. Feedback from the physical conference presentation may affect the final decision. Note that presenting author(s) must register and pay the non-refundable conference registration fee in order to present a paper at PIERS.

PIERS full papers will be submitted for publication in IEEE Xplore. The final PIERS proceedings will be reviewed by IEEE Societies that technically co-sponsor PIERS, including the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), for quality check before submission to IEEE Xplore for publication. IEEE GRSS can reject the paper for not meeting quality standards and conference publication policies. Please visit the detailed authors' guidelines for the latest PIERS sample files. The deadline for submitting full papers is April 25, 2026.

7 Pre-registration Deadline - April 20, 2026

All presenting authors must pay a non-refundable pre-registration fee. Each author is limited to presenting no more than two talks (including poster papers but excluding hot-topic/keynote talks; one person can give no more than 1 keynote talk) at the symposium and is required to register and pay by the pre-registration deadline. Only pre-registered and paid submissions before April 20, 2026, will be scheduled in the symposium program. Inclusion of the submissions in the final Technical Program (abstracts only) and PIERS Proceedings (full-length papers only) is guaranteed only after the pre-registration of the presenting author is completed. Your pre-registration will be valid only if the payment is received in a timely manner.

The pre-registration deadline is April 20, 2026. The on-site registration opportunity is for non-presenting authors only. Registration fee for your articles is non-refundable.

Please visit registration webpage for more detailed and latest instructions.