March 16-17, 2027 at Paderborn University

4th TRR 318 Conference: Scaffolding Social XAI 

16.03.2027 and 17.03.2027 in Paderborn 

Deadline for submissions: 1.11.2026

The interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Center TRR 318 Constructing Explainability explores the ways in which explanations are created, negotiated, and made meaningful across contexts. Previous editions of the conference have addressed different dimensions of explanation, including understanding and contextualising.

The 4th TRR 318 Conference turns to a perspective that has recently gained increasing attention in explainability research: Social XAI (sXAI), which conceptualizes explainability as a social practice. Accordingly, the topic of the upcoming conference is “Scaffolding Social XAI.”

By scaffolding, we refer to the social and communicative supports that enable critical and interactive engagement with ideas, assumptions, technologies, and tools. This also encompasses the ability to critically interrogate AI-generated outputs in practice (e.g., in educational contexts such as assessment or diagnosis), including emerging forms of XAI literacy as a situated competence.

We invite contributions from a wide range of disciplines that address explainability as a social phenomenon. This may include work on, (a) explanatory practices in dyadic interaction (b) explainability and interpretability in AI systems, or (c) explanation processes embedded in institutional and organizational settings.

Travel funds are available for national (up to 200€) and international (up to 400€) early-career researchers who do not have any other travel funds. In case you would like to apply, please send an informal application to conference@trr318.uni-paderborn.de.

Topics

Possible contributions include, but are not limited to:

• explainability as a social and interactional practice

• Social XAI and critical perspectives on AI explainability

• everyday explanations in dyadic or group interaction

• explainability, interpretability, and transparency in human–AI or human–robot interaction

• the role of explanation in institutional, educational, clinical, or workplace settings

• critical engagement with explanatory tools, technologies, and design practices

• XAI literacy and critical use of AI in professional practices (e.g., educational assessment, diagnosis, decision-making)

• theoretical, empirical, and methodological approaches to studying explanation across disciplines
   

Format of submissions:

Please submit an extended abstract with the following information:

• 2 pages, including references

• title

• author name(s), affiliation(s), and email address(es)

• 4–5 keywords

Please use this word or latex template for your submission and submit your extended abstract via EasyChair until 01.11.2026. 

Notifications of acceptance: 10.12.2026.

The accepted papers will be published in the Proceedings of the 4th TRR 318 Conference.
 

Formats of presentations:

Presentations may be presented in a 20-minute oral presentation or as a poster. Please indicate your preferred format within the submission.

Should you have any queries, please contact us at conference@trr318.uni-paderborn.de.

4TH TRR 318 CONFERENCE · SCAFFOLDING SOCIAL XAI

Special Session on XAI Literacy

16–17 March 2027 · Paderborn University, Germany

This special session is part of the 4th TRR 318 Conference, Scaffolding Social XAI.

Call for Contributions

If explainability is a social practice rather than solely a technical property, it depends on people who can request, interpret, evaluate, and contest explanations. This special session explores how these capacities can be fostered through education, interaction, and design.

We focus on Critical XAI Literacy, Critical Big Data and Algorithmic Literacy, and Critical Computational Literacy:literacies that support people in understanding explanations while also questioning their limits, biases, underlying data, and infrastructural conditions.

Topics of Interest

• Social, situational, and critical XAI literacy
• Pedagogies and scaffolding strategies
• Critical data literacy and datafication
• Power, equity, and exclusion in XAI
• Aesthetic and material scaffolds for literacy
• AI imaginaries and intelligent-system images
• Cases in education, diagnosis, and decisions
• Methods for assessing critical literacies

Submission Information

Short abstract: Max. 2 pages, including references, plus 4–5 keywords

Submission deadline: 14 November 2026 | Notification: 14 December 2026

Accepted contributions will appear in the Proceedings of the 4th TRR 318 Conference.

Presentations may be given as a 20-minute oral presentation or as a poster.

Submit via EasyChair

Please use this word or latex template for your submission  

Special Session Organizers

Dan Verständig · Carsten Schulte · Benjamin Paaßen

Travel support: Limited funding is available for early-career researchers without access to other travel funds, with support of up to 200€ for national and 400€ for international travel.

Questions: conference@trr318.uni-paderborn.de