SIGIR 2025 Low Resource Environments Track Report

The 48th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval introduced a new low resource environments (LREs) track, dedicated to build an information retrieval (IR) research community among scholars from low- and middle-income countries and those addressing IR challenges associated with limited resources. Rather than traditional research paper submissions, the track invited presentation proposals focused on information access in the context of LREs. The track had a full day schedule and was held on 16 July 2025 in Padua, Italy. This report provides the track's objectives, activities, lessons learned, and recommendations. Primary outcomes include: (i) participants from low-resource environments valued the opportunity to attend and present at SIGIR, with many expressing intent to submit a full paper at the conference; (ii) a need was identified for alternative, community-building activities to share knowledge, pool resources, and learn collectively; and (iii) early action is required to address visa and logistical challenges that may hinder participants from low income countries to participate in the conference. Date: 16 July 2025. Website: https://sigir2025.dei.unipd.it/low-resource-environments-track.html.