Devcon 8 · Mumbai · November 3–6, 2026
// research call for participation
Mumbai · October 31 – November 8, 2026
Network Resilience,
Privacy & Connectivity
Build networks that survive disconnection, resist censorship, protect privacy, and recover from failure.
The Network Resilience, Privacy & Connectivity Research Track invites researchers, networking engineers, open-source maintainers, and independent builders to advance the foundations of resilient peer-to-peer infrastructure using libp2p and related technologies.
Submission deadline
October 30, 2026 · 11:59 PM PST
Research paper + PoC · Pacific Standard Time (PST)
// networking under real-world constraints
Self-healing. Censorship-resistant. Privacy-preserving.
Networks must operate across restrictive firewalls, intermittent connections, mobile devices, isolated communities, and environments where centralized infrastructure is unavailable or untrusted. We invite original research that makes decentralized networking more robust, private, adaptive, and accessible. The goal is to move beyond connectivity that works under ideal conditions toward networks that continue operating under real-world constraints.
// research board
Eight tracks. Open questions. Original research.
8 of 8 tracks
TRACK 01
Self-Healing and Adaptive Networks
How can decentralized networks recover autonomously from disruption?
Research direction
- Adaptive topology management and recovery after peer failures.
- Dynamic relay selection and resilient bootstrap mechanisms.
- Network rebalancing under churn, attacks, and infrastructure failures.
- Fault-tolerant routing and recovery without centralized coordination.
TRACK 02
Censorship Resistance and Private Connectivity
How can peers communicate when networks are monitored, filtered, or restricted?
Research direction
- Censorship-resistant transports and connectivity strategies.
- Privacy-preserving peer discovery and traffic analysis resistance.
- Secure connectivity through restrictive firewalls and network gateways.
- Threat models for metadata exposure, traffic correlation, and targeted disruption.
TRACK 03
Offline-First and Intermittently Connected Networks
How can useful communication continue when peers cannot remain online?
Research direction
- Store-and-forward messaging and decentralized postbox architectures.
- Offline-first applications and delayed message delivery.
- State synchronization and reconciliation after reconnection.
- Reliable data replication, retention, and recovery across disconnected peers.
TRACK 04
Mobile, Edge and Resource-Constrained Networking
How can libp2p support diverse devices and challenging deployment environments?
Research direction
- Mobile networking and seamless roaming between networks.
- Peer-to-peer connectivity for IoT and edge devices.
- Energy-efficient discovery, connection management, and message delivery.
- Local-first networking through Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, and other suitable transports.
TRACK 05
Connectivity and Network Traversal
How can peers establish reliable connections across heterogeneous networks?
Research direction
- NAT traversal, hole punching, and relay-to-direct connection upgrades.
- Context-aware dialing and address selection.
- Connection recovery and stream migration.
- Measuring connection success, establishment latency, and reachability.
TRACK 06
Partitioned Networks and Disaster Resilience
How can communities maintain communication during large-scale infrastructure failures?
Research direction
- Network partitions caused by disasters, censorship, or infrastructure outages.
- Local mesh networks and disconnected network islands.
- Store-and-forward data exchange across intermittently connected regions.
- Safe reconciliation, membership changes, and recovery after partitions heal.
TRACK 07
Privacy-Preserving Network Measurement
How can researchers understand network behavior without compromising user privacy?
Research direction
- Privacy-preserving telemetry and network measurement.
- Anonymous or aggregated connectivity statistics.
- Measurement techniques for peer reachability, latency, and network health.
- Balancing observability, security, and data minimization.
TRACK 08
Open Research: Submit a PoC + Long Paper
Have a research idea beyond these areas?
Research direction
- We welcome original work that advances resilient networking, privacy, censorship resistance, or decentralized connectivity.
- Submissions may explore new protocols, transport mechanisms, network models, simulations, implementations, or experimental methods.
// submit your research
Turn your question into a paper and PoC.
We invite individuals and collaborative teams to submit:
Research proposal
A clearly defined problem, research question, and expected contribution.
Proof of concept (PoC)
A prototype, implementation, simulation, or reproducible experiment.
Long-form technical paper
Covering motivation, related work, methodology, design, evaluation, results, limitations, and future directions.
Supporting materials
An open-source repository, test suite, benchmarks, threat model, or documentation, as applicable.
We encourage work that can be reproduced, independently evaluated, and developed further with the libp2p and wider decentralized networking communities.
Deadline: October 30, 2026 · 11:59 PM PST
// evaluation milestones
From submission to research exchange
October 31 – November 1
Eligibility and completeness review
Submissions will be checked for completeness, research relevance, clarity of the problem statement, and a credible proposed approach.
November 1 – 3
Technical and research evaluation
Eligible submissions will be assessed on originality, research depth, technical feasibility, PoC quality, reproducibility, practical impact, and potential for open-source contribution.
November 3 – 4
Selection and notifications
Selected participants will be notified following the evaluation process, with participation details shared directly.
November 4 – 6
Research exchange at Devcon 8
Connect with researchers, protocol designers, maintainers, and builders through the Resilient Networking Hub to discuss findings and explore collaborations.
Following Devcon
Virtual engagement at IETF 127
Continue the conversation with the wider networking and standards community through virtual participation, subject to the confirmed arrangements.
// participation fee waiver
Submit your research paper and PoC to qualify for a full fee waiver for Devcon 8 and virtual participation at IETF 127.
We want to make it easier for researchers and builders to contribute meaningful work to the networking ecosystem. Fee-waiver arrangements and participation details will be shared soon.
// who should participate?
Researchers, maintainers and curious builders
We welcome academic researchers, PhD students, independent investigators, protocol engineers, open-source maintainers, and teams working on distributed systems, privacy, network security, decentralized infrastructure, and resilient connectivity.
Individual and collaborative submissions are welcome. Cross-disciplinary research combining networking, security, systems engineering, and applied research is particularly encouraged.
// expected outcomes
Evidence, implementations and lasting contributions
- Research papers and reproducible prototypes.
- Open-source networking implementations and experiments.
- Benchmarks and evidence of resilience under realistic failure conditions.
- Protocol and architectural proposals for privacy-preserving, fault-tolerant networks.
- Contributions to libp2p and related decentralized networking projects.
// our goal
Build. Test. Recover. Research. Publish. Contribute.
This is more than a research submission program. It is an opportunity to turn open questions into prototypes, technical papers, reproducible experiments, and collaborative work that advances resilient networking.
Join the Network Resilience, Privacy & Connectivity Research Track at Devcon 8 Mumbai and help build a decentralized internet that remains useful when networks fail, infrastructure is restricted, or connectivity cannot be taken for granted.