16th Metaheuristics International Conference

The 16th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC 2026), sponsored by EU/ME, will bring together the international research community to discuss metaheuristics progress and applications.

MIC 2026 focuses on presentations that cover different aspects of metaheuristic research such as new algorithmic developments, high-impact and original applications, new research challenges, theoretical developments, implementation issues, and in-depth experimental studies. MIC 2026 strives for a high-quality program that will be completed by a number of invited talks, tutorials, workshops and special sessions.

Important Dates

• December 1, 2025: Submission & Registration Open
• January 5, 2026: Submission Deadline
• February 2, 2026: Acceptance Notification
• March 3, 2026: Early Registration Deadline
• June 8-11, 2026: Conference Dates

All deadlines use AoE/UTC-12h timezone

Location

The conference will be held on Ischia Island, Naples, Italy, a volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples known for its natural beauty, diverse landscapes, and thermal springs dating to the 7th century B.C.

The Hotel Continental Terme features Mediterranean-style architecture with 12 modular meeting rooms (15-300 seat capacity) and opportunities to combine conference attendance with leisure activities.

Research Topics

The conference welcomes submissions on:

• Metaheuristic techniques such as tabu search, simulated annealing, iterated local search, variable neighborhood search, memory-based optimization, dynamic local search, evolutionary algorithms, memetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, scatter search, path relinking, etc.
• Techniques that enhance usability and increase the potential of metaheuristic algorithms such as reactive search mechanisms for self-tuning, offline metaheuristic algorithm configuration techniques, algorithm portfolios, parallelization, etc.
• Empirical and theoretical research in metaheuristics including large-scale experimental analyses, algorithm comparisons, new experimental methodologies, search space analysis, theoretical insights into properties of metaheuristic algorithms, etc.
• High-impact applications of metaheuristics in fields such as bioinformatics, electrical and mechanical engineering, telecommunications, sustainability, business, scheduling and timetabling.
• Integration with other areas such as integer programming, constraint programming, machine learning, etc.
• Applications in machine learning and deep learning for fine-tuning and neural architecture search.
• Challenging application areas such as continuous, mixed discrete-continuous, multi-objective, stochastic, or dynamic problems.

Leadership

Program & Organization Chair: Paola Festa Committee Members: Daniele Ferone, Tommaso Pastore

More Information

For detailed information about registration, fees, and the full conference program, please visit the official website: www.mic2026.unina.it

We encourage all members of the GRAFO group and the metaheuristics community to participate in this important international conference.