The program of a software testing conference comes out of a multi-stage selection process: after the call for papers closes, a program committee assesses every submission, and each one gets at least three reviews. For EuroSTAR 2026, 527 valid submissions competed for around 50 program slots, an acceptance rate below ten percent. Quality, practical relevance and a balanced mix of topics decide what makes it in.
Key Takeaways
- Fewer than one in ten of the 527 valid submissions made it into the EuroSTAR program, because only around 50 slots were available, which puts the acceptance rate below 10 percent.
- AI-generated abstracts aren’t rejected because of where they come from, but because they leave unclear what the problem is, who is speaking and what personal experience stands behind the talk.
- Anyone who gets a rejection from EuroSTAR and asks for feedback receives an individual response that names concrete improvements for the next submission.
- Program committee members and their colleagues from the same company may not speak at EuroSTAR, so no conflict of interest can creep into the program selection.
- Would-be speakers improve their chances by starting early, having someone review the abstract and simply reaching out to the program chair directly.
What Sets a Good Testing Conference Apart From an Average One
A good conference isn’t made by having the best talks. It is made by the process that leads to those talks, starting with how the call for papers is handled. Saying “just pick the best talks” is as empty as saying good software comes from writing good software.
From a quality point of view, what counts is the selection process behind the program. How does a program committee filter hundreds of submissions down to the few that make the cut? Which criteria decide? And how do you make sure that a strong, coherent program comes out at the end?
That is where conferences really differ. Not in slightly different rules, but in how rigorous and how structured the filter is.
How a Program Committee Builds a Program From 527 Submissions
The program chair owns the program and puts together a small team for it. For EuroSTAR 2026 in Oslo, that committee had five members. Their main job: to act as the filter between everything submitted and what actually ends up on stage.
The numbers show how tight that filter is. 527 complete, valid submissions went into review, after incomplete or obviously unusable entries had already been sorted out. They competed for around 50 slots across three days. That puts the acceptance rate below 10 percent.
Each committee member rated about 100 submissions. On top of that, at least two more reviewers looked at every submission, so each talk received at least three reviews. These reviewers come from the community: people who have spoken themselves, know the topics and volunteer their time to work through the submissions.
An acceptance rate that low sets EuroSTAR apart from most other testing conferences. It also means many good talks get rejected, not because they are bad, but because another submission on the same topic was just a little better.
Why Good Talks Still Get Rejected
When slots are scarce, a rejection rarely means the submission was weak. With an acceptance rate under 10 percent, talks drop out that any other conference would have accepted.
At EuroSTAR, you can ask for the reasons after a rejection. For the 2026 edition, around 70 such requests were answered one by one: the submission reread, the video watched, all review comments read, and constructive feedback written up to improve the odds in the next round.
That feedback does nothing for the current program. It comes from knowing firsthand how frustrating a rejection without reasons is. If all you get is a “no,” and asking again brings either silence or another “no,” you learn nothing.
For speakers, that feedback is exactly what’s valuable. It shows whether the talk needed more hands-on practice, whether the examples should have been different or whether the wording simply missed the core. Sometimes it comes down to a nuance.
Different Perspectives on the Committee Make a Better Program
A program committee should deliberately bring together different career paths. When five people with different professional backgrounds look at the same submission, that mix catches talks a single perspective would have missed.
A talk that leaves one person cold can convince another for a perfectly good reason. That friction produces the discussions that balance a program: which talk brings a perspective that would otherwise be missing? What rounds out the picture?
With so few slots, the debates often come down to details. Choosing between two excellent talks on similar topics is no fun, because only one of them fits.
Why an AI-Generated Abstract Rarely Convinces in a Call for Papers
A fully AI-generated abstract doesn’t fail because an AI wrote it. It fails because it is usually bad. It stays unclear what the talk is about, what it offers and what qualifies the speaker to give it.
An excellent talk lives on real work experience. Your own failures, your own successes, things you did yourself. On those, you are the best expert there is, you can answer questions authentically and you have material no language model knows. An AI doesn’t know what you went through at work.
There is nothing wrong with using language models, as long as they support you rather than replace you. For non-native speakers in particular, it helps to look at suggestions at the word or sentence level. What matters is checking every single suggestion: does the sentence still sound like you? Does it really get simpler? Would you have put it that way yourself? Then take it. If not, don’t.
One telltale pattern: when an abstract still has no clear message after three readings, a check with a detection tool almost always shows it was 100 percent generated.
A Mandatory Video Raises the Bar for Entry
A required video link in the submission filters out careless, fully generated entries. At EuroSTAR, 30 seconds recorded on a phone is enough.
The video does two jobs. It raises the effort just enough that nobody fires off generated material on a whim. And it gives the committee a sense of how a person comes across when speaking and whether the whole picture fits together.
Keynotes Thrive on Unusual Careers
The most interesting keynotes come from people with unusual career paths who have experienced something relevant to the community that hasn’t been told often. Here, too, personal experience is the best foundation.
Two examples from the 2026 program show the principle. Wolfgang Platz, founder of Tricentis, developed Tosca as a test automation solution inside Allianz, spun it off into a company and built that company over decades. From that span, he can tell how testing and test automation changed over three decades and across different cultures, organizations and domains.
Michael Kutz has held a range of roles at the same corporation, always focused on software quality. His question is about teams: why do some work really well and others don’t, and which factors make the difference? He points the quality lens not only at software, but at the team as well.
Practitioners Deserve More Stage Time
Conferences get a disproportionate number of submissions from people who make a living from speaking or want to raise a product’s profile. Those can be excellent talks, but they don’t have to be.
Practitioners, on the other hand, are often underrepresented: people who do the testing in their own company, run a test department or roll out a tool and report on it. These are exactly the voices that need special attention so they are well represented in the program.
Having a product in the background doesn’t rule out a good talk. What matters is whether stories, experiences and new insights take center stage while the product takes a back seat.
A Strict Rule Against Self-Promotion
At EuroSTAR, neither the program committee nor the program chair may speak. Nobody who works at a committee member’s company gets onto the program either.
The rule prevents any impression that the committee is building a program to put itself on stage. It forces everyone to focus on a good program instead of squeezing in a colleague here and there. For very large companies, that is tough, because the whole company sits out for a year. But that is how the separation works.
Talking From Your Own Experience Beats Any Generic Slide
The most rewarding talks report concretely: this is what we did, this worked, this didn’t, and this is how the problem turned out. Not “here are the possible problems, and maybe it’ll work,” but a genuine look back at real practice.
On AI in testing, EuroSTAR 2026 marked a turning point. It was the first edition with talks evaluating a year or more of real use, because before that the tools were simply too new. The conversation is moving from “we have to use it and be careful” to concrete applications and the question of how humans and AI can work together well.
Three examples show the range, because each one connects a specific domain with concrete experience:
| Talk | Speaker / Source | What It’s About |
|---|---|---|
| Closing the Loop: Using Field Data as a Quality Metric | Florian Wartenberg, Vestas | Using failure data from the field to improve testing and quality assurance. A failure costs money directly, because the wind turbine then produces less power. |
| Exploratory Testing for Massively Multiplayer Online Games | Oliver Hilt | Exploratory testing in the gaming domain. A bug doesn’t bring hardware to a standstill, it drives players away, which is financial damage of a very different kind. |
| Using AI to Create User Acceptance Tests: A Case Study from BBC Radio | BBC Radio | Using AI to create user acceptance tests, evaluated as a concrete case with a look back at how well it worked. |
These talks carry weight because they come from real-world use. You can see a certain maturity, especially given how short a time the tools have been around.
How to Write a Strong Call for Papers Submission
Start your abstract early, not at the last minute. The reason is sneaky: the better you know a topic, the harder it is to put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t. It’s precisely on the topics you are best qualified for that you often pick the wrong level of abstraction.
Have your abstract reviewed, ideally by a colleague close at hand. Unusual but effective: write to the program committee or the program chair. Briefly describe your topic, ask whether it fits and send a draft. That rarely happens, but it helps both sides, because the submission gets better.
Talk about something you have personal experience with. A reviewer should be able to tell from your résumé and short bio alone that you are speaking from your own practice.
And then: go for it. Being nervous is normal, everyone is. Sometimes it helps to just hit submit at the right moment, before the doubts creep back in.
Between acceptance and the conference, you usually have three to six months to prepare. Use that time for a practice run. First on your own, to check slide transitions and timing, and you don’t need an audience for that. Then in front of a small test audience that gives you honest feedback.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the chances of getting a talk included in the program of a major testing conference?
They’re slim. At EuroSTAR in Oslo, there were 527 complete, valid submissions competing for about 50 program slots over three days, resulting in an acceptance rate of less than ten percent. Incomplete or obviously unsuitable submissions had already been weeded out at that point. Such a low acceptance rate means that even many strong presentations are rejected.
How many people evaluate a single submission?
At least three. The program committee for EuroSTAR in Oslo consisted of five people, each of whom evaluated about 100 submissions. In addition, at least two other reviewers looked at each submission. These reviewers come from the community, have often spoken at conferences themselves, and work through the submissions on a volunteer basis.
If a presentation is rejected, can you find out why it wasn’t accepted?
At EuroSTAR, yes: If you ask, you’ll receive personalized feedback. For the Oslo event, around 70 such requests were answered individually, each time after taking another look at the submission, the video, and all the review comments. The feedback specifically states whether practical examples were missing, the examples were inappropriate, or the wording missed the point.
Is it okay to use a language model when writing an abstract?
Yes, as long as it supports rather than replaces your work. Suggestions at the word or sentence level are especially helpful for non-native speakers. The key is to evaluate each suggestion individually: Does the sentence still sound like you? Does it really make things simpler? Would you have phrased it that way yourself? Fully generated abstracts, on the other hand, fail because it remains unclear what the topic is about and what qualifies the speaker.
How can a program committee tell if a submission is backed by genuine practical experience?
There are several indicators. The required video link (at EuroSTAR, 30 seconds recorded on a cell phone) shows how someone speaks and whether the setting is plausible. At the same time, it increases the effort required to such an extent that randomly generated submissions are weeded out. The resume and short bio should also make it clear that the person is reporting on their own work.
Are members of a program committee allowed to speak at the conference themselves?
Not at EuroSTAR. Neither committee members nor the Program Chair are included on the program, nor is anyone who works at the companies where committee members are employed. This rule prevents the impression that the committee is putting itself on stage. For very large companies, this is a tough requirement because it means the entire company is sidelined for a year.
Does having a product behind a submission hurt its chances?
Not necessarily. What matters is whether stories, experiences, and new insights take center stage while the product takes a back seat. However, conferences receive a disproportionately high number of submissions from people who make a living from speaking or who want to raise a product’s profile. Users are underrepresented: people who conduct testing themselves, lead a testing department, or implement a tool.
How much preparation time is there between acceptance and the conference?
Typically, three to six months. This time is well worth spending on practice presentations. The first run-through is done alone to check slide transitions and timing; no audience is needed for this. This is followed by a run-through in front of a small test audience that provides genuine feedback. The abstract itself should also be drafted early on, not at the last minute.
