The PROPOR Ecosystem: Structure, Roles, and Evolution of Portuguese-Language NLP

Rafael O. Nunes, Gustavo L. Tamiosso, Pedro L. C. de Andrade, Matheus S. de Aguiar, Rafael P. de Gouveia, Higor Moreira, Bruno Tavares, Laura P. de Gouveia, Felipe S. F. Paula, Andre Spritzer, Hidelberg O. Albuquerque, Nádia F. F. da Silva, Ellen P. R. S. Pereira, Dennis G. Balreira, Joel L. Carbonera


Abstract
The PROPOR conference has been the main venue for Portuguese language Natural Language Processing (NLP) research for over two decades. This paper presents a longitudinal bibliometric analysis of PROPOR from 2003 to 2024, examining thematic evolution, community structure, and scientific impact. We identify a shift from speech-oriented research toward text-based tasks, alongside the sustained importance of resources and linguistic theory. The community exhibits a stable structure, with complementary leadership models centered on institutional hubs and brokerage roles. Scientific impact is highly concentrated, following a long tail distribution, and distinguishes between cumulative productivity-driven impact and rapidly accelerating citation uptake in recent editions. These findings characterize PROPOR as a resilient regional linguistic ecosystem evolving in dialogue with broader NLP paradigms.
Anthology ID:
2026.propor-1.34
Volume:
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1
Month:
April
Year:
2026
Address:
Salvador, Brazil
Editors:
Marlo Souza, Iria de-Dios-Flores, Diana Santos, Larissa Freitas, Jackson Wilke da Cruz Souza, Eugénio Ribeiro
Venue:
PROPOR
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
342–350
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.34/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Rafael O. Nunes, Gustavo L. Tamiosso, Pedro L. C. de Andrade, Matheus S. de Aguiar, Rafael P. de Gouveia, Higor Moreira, Bruno Tavares, Laura P. de Gouveia, Felipe S. F. Paula, Andre Spritzer, Hidelberg O. Albuquerque, Nádia F. F. da Silva, Ellen P. R. S. Pereira, Dennis G. Balreira, and Joel L. Carbonera. 2026. The PROPOR Ecosystem: Structure, Roles, and Evolution of Portuguese-Language NLP. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1, pages 342–350, Salvador, Brazil. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
The PROPOR Ecosystem: Structure, Roles, and Evolution of Portuguese-Language NLP (Nunes et al., PROPOR 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.34.pdf