Delft (the Netherlands): October 26-28, 2026
NEW Deadline: 12 June 2026 (two week extension)
Grammatical
Inference is the research area at the intersection of Machine Learning
and Formal Language Theory. Since 1993, the International Conference on
Grammatical Inference (ICGI) is the meeting place for presenting,
discovering, and discussing the latest research results on the
foundations of learning languages, from theoretical and algorithmic
perspectives to their applications (natural language or document
processing, bioinformatics, model checking and software verification,
program synthesis, robotic planning and control, intrusion detection…).
This 17th edition of ICGI will be held in Delft, the Netherlands.
Types of contributions
We welcome three types of papers:
- Regular papers
describe original contributions (theoretical, empirical, conceptual, or
a software tool) in the field of grammatical inference. They should
clearly describe the situation or problem tackled, the relevant state of
the art, the position or solution suggested, and the benefits of the
contribution.
- Extended abstract of published works can be submitted to present already published work. Existing tools or applications of grammatical inference can also be presented in this track.
- WIP papers: We also invite abstracts on work in progress. This allows you to present unfinished ideas that may be of interest to the grammatical inference community.
Only
the regular papers will be published in the proceedings. The extended
abstracts of published work and WIP papers will receive a light review
process.
Topics of interest
Typical topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
- Theoretical aspects of grammatical inference: learning paradigms, learnability results, the complexity of learning.
- Learning algorithms for language classes inside and outside the Chomsky hierarchy. Learning tree grammars, graph grammars, ….
- Learning probability distributions over strings, trees or graphs, or transductions thereof.
- Research on query learning, active learning, and other interactive learning paradigms.
- Research
on methods using or including, but not limited to, spectral learning,
state-merging, distributional learning, statistical relational learning,
statistical inference, or Bayesian learning
- Theoretical
analysis of computational models, such as artificial neural networks,
automata, grammars, Markov models, and their expressiveness through the
lens of formal languages and inference.
- Experimental and
theoretical analysis of different approaches to grammatical inference,
including artificial neural networks, statistical methods, symbolic
methods, information-theoretic approaches, minimum description length,
complexity-theoretic approaches, heuristic methods, etc.
- Leveraging
formal language tools, models, and theory to improve the
explainability, interpretability, or verifiability of neural networks or
other black box models.
- Learning with contextualized data: for
instance, Grammatical Inference from strings or trees paired with
semantic representations, or learning by situated agents and robots.
- Successful
applications of grammatical inference to other areas, including, but
not limited to, natural language processing, computational linguistics,
model checking, software verification, bioinformatics, robotic planning
and control, and pattern recognition.
Guidelines for authors
Accepted
regular papers will be published within the Proceedings of Machine
Learning Research series (
http://proceedings.mlr.press/). Submission
instructions can be found on the conference website. The total length of
the paper should not exceed 12 pages on A4-size paper (references and
appendix may exceed this limit but be warned that reviewers may not read
after page 12). We strongly encourage to use the JMLR style file for
LaTeX (
https://ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/jmlr); this is
required for the final published version.
The peer review process is double-blind: we expect submitted papers to be anonymous.
Timeline (all dates are Anywhere on Earth)
NEW submission deadline is: June 12, 2026
Notification of acceptance: July 10, 2026
Conference: October 26-28, 2026
Program Committee
Adam
Jardine; Alexander Clark; Andrea Pferscher; Benedikt Bollig; Bernhard
Aichernig; Chihiro Shibata; Dakotah Lambert; Falk Howar; François Coste;
Johanna Björklund; Karl Meinke; Matthias Gallé; Maude Lizaire; Ryan
Cotterell; Rémi Eyraud; Sergio Yovine; Steffen van Bergerem; Tiago
Ferreira
ICGI Steering Committee
Johanna
Björklund (Umeå University); Jeffrey Heinz (Stony Brook University);
Adam Jardine (Rutgers University); Franz Mayr (Universidad ORT Uruguay);
Joshua Moerman (Open Universiteit); Guillaume Rabusseau (Montreal
University & Mila); Chihiro Shibata (Hosei University); Lena Strobl
(Umeå University); Ryo Yoshinaka (Tohoku University)
Local Organisers
Sicco Verwer (TU Delft); Joshua Moerman (Open Universiteit)
Kind regards,
Joshua Moerman
Sicco Verwer
On behalf of the ICGI steering committee