The objective of the 1st International Workshop on Secure and AdvancedFederated Learning with Homomorphic Encryption (SAFE-HE 2026) workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore recent advances in integrating Federated Learning (FL) and Homomorphic Encryption (HE), with a focus on both theoretical foundations and practical implementations. The workshop aims to identify key open challenges and highlight promising research directions for secure and efficient distributed learning. A core goal is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the cryptography, machine learning, privacy, cybersecurity, and systems communities, promoting a shared understanding of the complex issues at the intersection of these fields. Additionally, the workshop will serve as a platform to disseminate tools, methodologies, and results developed under the CIBER-CAFE initiative, supporting the broader adoption and impact of secure collaborative learning technologies.

Submission Guidelines

Online Submission System

Authors must submit their contributions via the EasyChair submission system for SAFE-HE 2026. Submissions must be in PDF format and follow the ACM Proceedings Style. Manuscripts should not exceed 12 pages including figures and references. The review process will be double-blind, so submissions must be anonymized.

Submitted papers must contain original work not published or under consideration in any other journal, conference, or workshop.

Paper Categories

• Full papers describing novel research contributions, algorithms, protocols, frameworks, implementations, or applications related to Federated Learning (FL), Homomorphic Encryption (HE), and privacy-preserving distributed learning. (Up to 12 pages)

Submission Format

All manuscripts must be prepared in a single-column format using the official ACM templates:

• Word (docx): download

• LaTeX (zip): download — use the manuscript format option (see sample-manuscript.tex).

• Overleaf: ACM LaTeX template with manuscript format option.

Further details and submission link will be available on the SAFE-HE 2026 website.

List of Topics

Topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Algorithms, protocols, frameworks for FL using HE and other privacy techniques.

• Fairness, robustness, and trust in decentralized learning.

• Deployment and optimization across platforms, from edge to HPC.

• Benchmarks, datasets, tools for reproducible, efficient secure FL workflows.

• Socio-technical and regulatory aspects including post-quantum security and compliance.

Committees

Program Committee

• Luis Bernardo Pulido Gaytan, National College of Ireland, Ireland
• Darwin Quezada Gaibor, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
• Leonel Sousa, INESC-ID/IST, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Organizing committee

• Manuel F. DolzUniversitat Jaume I, Spain
• Sandra Catalán Universitat Jaume I, Spain

Invited Speakers

• Antonio J. Peña, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain

Publication

Papers will be published together with SCA/HPCAsia proceedings.

Venue

The conference will be held in conjunction with SCA/HPCAsia 2026, January 26-29 2026, Osaka, Japan

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to dolzm@uji.es and catalans@uji.es