New Advances in the Holistic Methodology for Configuration, Comparison and Evaluation of Metaheuristics
Principal investigators: José Manuel Colmenar Verdugo, Abraham Duarte Muñoz
Funding entity: Agencia Estatal de Investigación
External reference: PID2024-156045NB-I00
Internal reference: M4018
Duration: 01/09/2025 – 31/08/2028
Funding amount: 124,250 €
Abstract:
Metaheuristics are methods for solving combinatorial optimization problems that have proven highly effective in practice. However, their configuration, comparison, and evaluation remains a complex and poorly standardized process. This project proposes advancing a holistic methodology that coherently integrates the different aspects of experimental design with metaheuristics: parameter selection and tuning, the design of representative benchmarks, statistical comparison protocols, and performance evaluation under real-world conditions. The goal is to provide the research community with rigorous methodological tools and guidelines that allow reliable and reproducible conclusions to be drawn about the behavior of these techniques.
J. Manuel Colmenar
Full Professor
My research interests are focused on metaheuristics applied to optimization problems. I have worked on different combinatorial optimization problems applying trajectorial algorithms such us GRASP or VNS. Besides, I am very interested in applications of Grammatical Evolution, specifically in model and prediction domain, as alternative to machine learning approaches.
Abraham Duarte
Full Professor
Abraham Duarte is Full Professor in the Computer Science Department at the Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid, Spain). He has done extensive research in the interface between computer science, artificial intelligence, and operations research to develop solution methods based on Computational Intelligence (metaheuristics) for practical problems in operations-management areas such as logistics and supply chains, telecommunications, decision-making under uncertainty and optimization of simulated systems.