The 1st Workshop on Experimental Research on Networking (ERN) is held in conjunction with NoF 2026 on September 29, 2026 in Rome, Italy.

The networking research community has made significant strides in developing novel architectures, protocols, and management paradigms for next-generation communication networks. However, a notable share of results presented at major venues remains grounded in analytical modeling and simulation-based evaluations, leaving a growing gap between proposed designs and practical deployment.

The Workshop on Experimental Research on Networking (ERN) aims to fill this gap by providing a dedicated forum for experimental results, reproducible methodologies, prototyping efforts, and testbed-driven research at the networking layer and above (L2/L3+). ERN specifically targets work involving real-world experimentation, hardware-in-the-loop validation, and end-to-end system prototyping.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Experimental 5G/6G network architectures and protocol validation
- O-RAN testbeds, xApp/rApp development, and RIC benchmarking
- Optical networking experiments (SDM, multi-core fiber, flex-grid)
- Quantum networking prototypes (QKD, entanglement distribution, control planes)
- Satellite/NTN integration experiments and measurement campaigns
- Network orchestration, slicing, and multi-domain experimental validation
- AI/ML for networking: reproducible experimental deployment
- Programmable networking (P4, eBPF, intent-based) experimental platforms
- Edge/fog computing experimental evaluation
- Network cybersecurity experimental evaluation on real traffic
- Open datasets, benchmarking suites, and reproducibility tools

Scope clarification: physical-layer or link-level simulation studies without networking-layer experimental components are outside the workshop's scope.

Important Dates:
- Paper submission deadline: July 11, 2026 (AoE)
- Acceptance notification: August 15, 2026
- Camera-ready deadline: August 25, 2026
- Workshop date: September 29, 2026

Submission: Papers must follow the standard IEEE conference format (max 6 pages, 10-point font).

Accepted and presented papers will be published in the NoF 2026 Conference Proceedings and submitted to IEEE Xplore, subject to the standard presentation and registration requirements of the host conference.

Note for authors: Authors interested in demonstrating a working system related to their workshop paper are encouraged to also submit to the NoF Demo track.

More information: https://andreamarotta.github.io/ern-workshop/

Workshop Chairs:
- Andrea Marotta, University of L'Aquila, Italy
- Koteswararao Kondepu, IIT Dharwad, India
- Riccardo Bassoli, TU Dresden, Germany