Updated: 2026-06-06
Purpose: help interns select high-quality open-access papers to present, and identify realistic publication or poster targets for stronger rotation projects.
Notes:
Rankis an approximate prestige / citation-weight ranking, not a strict impact-factor ranking.OA statusdistinguishes fully open-access journals from hybrid journals where authors may choose open access.- Journal submissions are generally rolling unless otherwise noted.
- Conference dates shift yearly; approximate dates should be re-checked before assigning submission work.
| Rank | Journal | OA status | About URL | Submission / author guidelines | Conference / poster calendar fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nature Machine Intelligence | Hybrid OA | https://www.nature.com/natmachintell/ | https://www.nature.com/natmachintell/submission-guidelines | Good journal-club source. For conference-style work: ICLR abstracts usually mid/late Sept; NeurIPS main track usually May; AAAI 2027 abstracts due 2026-07-21 and full papers 2026-07-28. |
| 2 | Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) | Free-to-read / open | https://www.jmlr.org/ | https://jmlr.org/author-info.html | Rolling journal target for mature ML papers. Conference alignment: ICML/NeurIPS/ICLR-quality work; present internally anytime, submit conference versions during annual cycles. |
| 3 | Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR) | Open access / no APC | https://jmlr.org/tmlr/ | https://jmlr.org/tmlr/submissions.html | Strong intern stretch target for rigorous ML, replications, datasets, and negative results. Rolling submission; good for end-of-rotation manuscript draft. |
| 4 | Machine Learning | Hybrid OA | https://link.springer.com/journal/10994 | https://link.springer.com/journal/10994/submission-guidelines | Rolling journal target. Good for classical ML methods and careful empirical work. |
| 5 | Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) | Hybrid OA | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence/publish/guide-for-authors | Rolling journal target for substantial AI contributions. Conference bridge: AAAI/IJCAI-style work. |
| 6 | Artificial Intelligence Review | Fully OA | https://link.springer.com/journal/10462 | https://link.springer.com/journal/10462/submission-guidelines | Good for review/survey projects. Useful for interns building an annotated literature corpus. |
| 7 | PLOS Computational Biology | Fully OA | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/s/journal-information | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/s/submission-guidelines | Good for AI + biology / systems biology. Conference bridge: RECOMB, ISMB, NeurIPS ML4H workshops. |
| 8 | iScience | Fully OA | https://www.cell.com/iscience/home | https://www.cell.com/iscience/author-instructions | Broad interdisciplinary OA target. Good for AI + bio/robotics systems with a strong empirical story. |
| 9 | Scientific Reports | Fully OA | https://www.nature.com/srep/ | https://www.nature.com/srep/author-instructions | Practical OA outlet for sound empirical work. Good for intern replication or benchmark studies. |
| 10 | Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence | Fully OA | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/for-authors | Rolling OA target; especially useful for topic-specific special issues and applied AI work. |
| Rank | Journal | OA status | About URL | Submission / author guidelines | Conference / poster calendar fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Lancet Digital Health | Fully OA | https://www.thelancet.com/landig/about | https://www.thelancet.com/submission-guidelines?journal=landig | Highest-prestige digital-health reading list. Conference bridge: AMIA, MLHC, MICCAI, NeurIPS ML4H. |
| 2 | NEJM AI | Subscription / selective access | https://ai.nejm.org/about | https://ai.nejm.org/about/editorial-policies | Excellent journal-club source; likely too selective for intern submission unless the work is very strong. |
| 3 | npj Digital Medicine | Fully OA | https://www.nature.com/npjdigitalmed/ | https://www.nature.com/npjdigitalmed/for-authors | Strong OA target for clinical AI, sensors, EHR AI, and implementation studies. |
| 4 | Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) | Hybrid OA | https://amia.org/news-publications/journals/jamia | https://academic.oup.com/jamia/pages/General_Instructions | Premier informatics journal. Conference bridge: AMIA Annual Symposium, AMIA Informatics Summit. |
| 5 | Journal of Biomedical Informatics (JBI) | Hybrid OA | https://amia.org/news-publications/journals/journal-biomedical-informatics | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-biomedical-informatics/publish/guide-for-authors | Strong methodology journal. Good fit for novel NLP, CDS, EHR, FHIR, or evaluation methods. |
| 6 | JAMIA Open | Gold OA | https://amia.org/news-publications/journals/jamia-open | https://academic.oup.com/jamiaopen/pages/General_Instructions | Very good intern stretch target for applied informatics and reproducible implementation work. |
| 7 | Artificial Intelligence in Medicine | Hybrid OA | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence-in-medicine | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence-in-medicine/publish/guide-for-authors | Good for clinically motivated AI with both method novelty and healthcare relevance. |
| 8 | JMIR Medical Informatics | Fully OA | https://medinform.jmir.org/ | https://medinform.jmir.org/author-information/instructions-for-authors | Practical OA target for clinical informatics, EHR workflows, CDS, digital health, and implementation. |
| 9 | PLOS Digital Health | Fully OA | https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/s/journal-information | https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/s/submission-guidelines | Good OA target for digital health, health equity, AI evaluation, and reproducibility. |
| 10 | BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making | Fully OA | https://bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/ | https://bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines | Solid applied informatics outlet. Good for pragmatic evaluations and decision-support work. |
| Rank | Journal | OA status | About URL | Submission / author guidelines | Conference / poster calendar fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Science Robotics | Hybrid OA | https://www.science.org/journal/scirobotics | https://www.science.org/content/page/science-robotics-information-authors | Top robotics reading list. Conference bridge: ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL. |
| 2 | International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) | Hybrid OA | https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ijr | https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/ijr | Premier robotics journal. Good for mature robotics systems and algorithms. |
| 3 | IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) | Hybrid OA | https://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/t-ro/ | https://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/t-ro/information-for-authors/ | Premier IEEE robotics journal. Accepted papers may have linked conference presentation opportunities depending on IEEE RAS rules. |
| 4 | IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) | Hybrid OA | https://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/ra-l/ | https://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/ra-l/ra-l-information-for-authors/ | Fast-cycle robotics outlet; often paired with ICRA/IROS presentation options. |
| 5 | Autonomous Robots | Hybrid OA | https://link.springer.com/journal/10514 | https://link.springer.com/journal/10514/submission-guidelines | Good for autonomous systems, perception, planning, and robot learning. |
| 6 | Soft Robotics | Hybrid OA | https://www.liebertpub.com/loi/soro | https://www.liebertpub.com/forauthors/soft-robotics/616/ | Strong for bio-inspired, compliant, wearable, medical, and soft robotic systems. |
| 7 | Frontiers in Robotics and AI | Fully OA | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai/for-authors | Practical OA robotics target; useful for HRI, biomedical robotics, robot learning, field robotics, and special issues. |
| 8 | Robotics and Autonomous Systems | Hybrid OA | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/robotics-and-autonomous-systems | https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/robotics-and-autonomous-systems/publish/guide-for-authors | Good applied robotics/autonomy journal. |
| 9 | Advanced Robotics | Hybrid OA | https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/tadr20 | https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=tadr20 | Established robotics venue; good for applied and experimental robotics. |
| 10 | Robotics | Fully OA | https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics | https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/instructions | Lower-prestige but fully OA and practical for applied robotics, student projects, and replication work. |
| Area | Venue | Approximate submission window | Approximate presentation window | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI / ML | AAAI 2027 | Abstracts: 2026-07-21; full papers: 2026-07-28; supplement/code: 2026-07-31 | Usually early calendar year; AAAI 2027 cycle decisions after review cycle | Best immediate conference-style target as of June 2026. |
| AI / ML | ICLR 2027 | Historically mid/late September for abstracts/full papers | Historically late April / early May | 2027 exact dates should be verified when posted. Use ICLR 2026 dates as planning proxy. |
| AI / ML | NeurIPS 2026 | Main track already passed for 2026; workshop contributions often late summer depending on workshop | 2026-12-06 to 2026-12-12 | Good for workshop-paper planning, dataset/evaluation ideas, and journal club. |
| AI / ML | AISTATS 2027 | Historically late September / early October | Historically spring | Good for statistics, probabilistic ML, and rigorous evaluation. |
| Medical AI / imaging | MICCAI 2027 | TBA; often winter / early spring for papers | 2027-09-26 to 2027-10-01 | Strong target for imaging, segmentation, medical robotics, and biomedical computer vision. |
| Medical informatics | AMIA Annual Symposium | Typically spring/summer submission cycle | Typically November | Best informatics poster/paper fit for EHR, CDS, NLP, FHIR, workflow, and implementation. Re-check annual CFP. |
| Robotics | ICRA 2027 | TBA; ICRA 2026 proxy was submission opening 2025-07-15 and deadline 2025-09-15 | 2027-05-24 to 2027-05-28 | Premier robotics target. 2027 schedule page says detailed program/schedules coming soon. |
| Robotics | IROS 2027 | Typically late winter / early spring submission cycle | Typically fall | Strong robotics target; re-check IEEE RAS CFP annually. |
| Robotics / robot learning | CoRL | Typically spring/summer submission cycle | Typically fall | Best target for robot learning, imitation learning, embodied AI, and learned control. |
| Software / tools | JOSS | Rolling | N/A | Excellent for intern software artifacts with tests, documentation, and research relevance. |
| Open review / ML journal | TMLR | Rolling | N/A | Good for rigorous ML notes, replications, datasets, and reproducibility-oriented work. |
| Deliverable | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Paper selection | Pick one peer-reviewed open-access paper from the top 5–7 venues in the relevant area. |
| Presentation | 20 minutes: 5 min background, 5 min methods, 5 min results, 3 min critique, 2 min build/research idea. |
| Reproducibility | Find the code/data if available; identify what would be needed to reproduce the core result. |
| Repository artifact | Add a Markdown summary, citation, PDF link, notes, and a “what we could build” section. |
| Stretch goal | Produce a 2–4 page reproducible note, JOSS/TMLR-style artifact, workshop abstract, or poster draft. |