# ICASSP 2026 URGENT Speech Enhancement Challenge

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13531 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13531/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 20 Jan 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [GAP-URGENet: A Generative-Predictive Fusion Framework for Universal Speech Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01832/) (2026)
- [DiT-Flow: Speech Enhancement Robust to Multiple Distortions based on Flow Matching in Latent Space and Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21608/) (2026)
- [StrixAE: An Intelligent Agent for Audio Enhancement under Complex Distortion Coupling in Real-World Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03414/) (2026)
- [Livin' on a Prior: Likelihood Score Approximation for Inverse Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34446/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The ICASSP 2026 URGENT Challenge advances the series by focusing on universal speech enhancement (SE) systems that handle diverse distortions, domains, and input conditions. This overview paper details the challenge's motivation, task definitions, datasets, baseline systems, evaluation protocols, and results. The challenge is divided into two complementary tracks. Track 1 focuses on universal speech enhancement, while Track 2 introduces speech quality assessment for enhanced speech. The challenge attracted over 80 team registrations, with 29 submitting valid entries, demonstrating significant community interest in robust SE technologies.