Impacting Public Policies through Human-Computer Interaction Research

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research has grown substantially in Latin America, producing valuable contributions in applied computing, design methods, accessibility, ethics, and user-centered design. Academic papers often provide guidelines, propose methodologies, and report good practices on how to design computing systems. However, the impact of these contributions tend to remain restricted to academic circles, with limited translation into industry standards, legislation, or public policies. This Special Call seeks to address this science-policy gap by highlighting the potential of HCI research to inform evidence-based policymaking in Latin America.

In an effort to bridge current challenges and policies, this call for papers builds on top of contributions presented in the GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035 (Grand Research Challenges in Human-Computer Interaction in Brazil for 2025-2035), which defines a community-driven research agenda for the next decade. The GranDIHC-BR 2025-2035 identified seven major challenges, each of which has clear policy implications:

  1.   New Theoretical and Methodological Approaches;
  2.   Ethics and Responsibility;
  3.   Plurality and Decoloniality;
  4.   Socio-Cultural Impacts;
  5.   Human-Data Interaction;
  6.   Implications of Artificial Intelligence; and
  7.   Interaction with Emerging Technologies.

The literature also counts on recommendations for bridging the research-policy gap, as follows:

  1.   Do high quality research;
  2.   Make your research relevant and readable;
  3.   Understand policy processes;
  4.   Be accessible to policymakers: engage routinely, flexible, and humbly;
  5.   Decide if you want to be an issue advocate or honest broker;
  6.   Build relationships (and ground rules) with policymakers;
  7.   Be ‘entrepreneurial’ or find someone who is; and
  8.   Reflect continuously: should you engage, do you want to, and is it working?

By engaging with GranDIHC-BR and these recommendations for bridging the science-policy gap, this Special Call aims to consolidate the role of HCI research as a strategic field for public policy innovation. Contributions shall include empirical studies, case reports, conceptual frameworks, and interdisciplinary analyses showing how HCI findings can —and should— translate into national and regional policies. Accepted papers will be published as a collection of thematic papers in the current volume of the journal. 

The expected outcome of this call is twofold: (1) to influence policy agendas in Latin America by making high-quality, evidence-based HCI research accessible to government bodies and regulators, and (2) to promote a new framing for HCI research practice towards tangible public policy implications.

Paper Submission

This Special Call invites HCI researchers and practitioners to reflect on GranDIHC-BR and to impact public policies (in any status) through evidence-based research by having in mind the following types of submission:

  1. Novel in-depth research with direct application to a specific public policy;
  2. Meta-reviews gathering cohesive results from HCI research groups towards a specific public policy;
  3. Extended versions of previously published works towards a specific public policy;
  4. Novel approaches (methods, methodologies, framing, etc.) aiming at reducing the science-policy gap through HCI research.

Authors are invited to submit papers by March/31/2026. Submissions should be original and should not be under consideration for publication in another journal or conference while being evaluated in JIS.

If the submission consists of an extended version of a previously published conference paper, authors need to ensure that the submission is a non-trivial extension of the original paper, with special focus on impacting public policies. Authors also must ensure that the extended paper contains at least 40% new material (more is expected) compared to the previously published work.

Submissions must follow the journal’s guidelines for authors. Authors must read and follow these instructions carefully when preparing their manuscripts. We strongly recommend reading the journal’s editorial workflow and guidelines for reviewers. 

Schedule and Plan

The selection process will follow a single-anonymous peer-review protocol. Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by three independent experts. Submissions that do not meet the journal requirements and fail to adhere to the submission checklist will be deskrejected.

Important Dates

  • Submission Deadline: March/31/2026
  • Notification Deadline - May/31/2026
  • Submission Deadline - 2nd round: July/31/2026
  • Decision Deadline - 2nd round: September/30/2026
  • Camera-ready submission deadline: Nov/30/2026
  • Collection of accepted papers - planned date for publication: Jan/01/2027

Special Issue Editors

Vagner Figueredo de Santana has been researching topics on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) since 2006, focusing on interconnections between HCI and Machine Learning, ranging from problem understanding & field studies to data-oriented evaluation & delivery of intelligent user interfaces. He has been actively collaborating with Brazilian and International HCI communities. In Brazil, he was general chair of XV Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems (IHC 2016). In 2019, he was lead program chair for IHC 2019. Moreover, he was part of the editorial board of the Journal of Brazilian Computer Society (2020-2024). Internationally, he has been acting as reviewer for multiple international HCI conferences and journals (e.g., CHI, FAccT, IJHCS, UAIS, TACCESS, Multimedia Tools and Applications, and Interacting with Computers).

Diogo Cortiz is Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and Senior Researcher at the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br). He has been researching the intersection of HCI, governance, and public policy for 10 years. As senior researcher at NIC.br, he has actively collaborated with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Diogo Cortiz was chair of LA-Web Workshop and FATES both at The Web Conference. He had also organized several workshops for the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (UN IGF).