The 4th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS) conference, sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), will be held in Berkeley, California, January 10-12, 2013.

ITCS (previously known as ICS) seeks to promote research that carries a strong conceptual message (e.g., introducing a new concept or model, opening a new line of inquiry within traditional or cross-interdisciplinary areas, or introducing new techniques or new applications of known techniques). ITCS welcomes all submissions, whether aligned with current theory of computation research directions or deviating from them.

Submission Format
Submissions should start with a title page consisting of the title of the paper; each author's name, affiliation, and email address; and an abstract of 1-2 paragraphs summarizing the paper's contributions. A submission must contain within its first ten pages a clear presentation of the merits of the paper, including discussion of its importance, prior work, and an outline (similar to a brief oral presentation) of key technical ideas and methods used to achieve the main claims. There is no bound on the length of a submission, but material other than the abstract, references, and the first ten pages may be considered as supplementary and will be read at the committee's discretion. Authors are encouraged to put the references at the very end of the submission. The submission should include all of the ideas necessary for an expert to verify fully the central claims in the paper. Finally, the submission should be addressed to a broad spectrum of theoretical computer scientists, not solely to experts in the subarea.

The extended abstract should be typeset using 11-point or larger fonts, in a single-column, single-space (between lines) format with ample spacing throughout and 1-inch margins all around. Submissions deviating significantly from these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits.

All submissions will be treated as confidential, and will only be disclosed to the committee and their chosen sub-referees.