CfP: Workshop on Soft Constraints Discrete Optimization and Machine Learning @ FLoC CP 2026

[Simon de Givry]

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                         CP2026 Workshop on

     Soft Constraints, Discrete Optimization, and Machine Learning
                              (Soft 2026)

                          July 24th, 2026
                       ISCTE, Lisbon, Portugal
                    Held in conjunction with the
                 Federated Logic Conference (FLoC'26)
                 and 32th International Conference on
      Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2026) 

                  https://hub.imt-atlantique.fr/soft2026

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              Paper Submission Deadline: May 15th
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                         Call for Papers
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This  workshop  aims  to  bring  together  researchers  on constraint
reasoning,  optimization, and  learning  to  present recent advances,
share  ongoing   work,  and  discuss  future   directions  for hybrid
approaches that  combine discrete  optimization with  machine learning
and data mining.

Topics of Interest (but are not restricted to):
- Max-SAT
- Max-SMT
- Markov Random Field
- Pseudo-Boolean Optimization
- Soft global constraints
- Weighted CSP
- Integer Programming
- Combining discrete optimization with machine learning for better
  solver design.
- Data-driven strategies to guide search heuristics, branching, or
  propagation.
- Using machine learning and data mining techniques to guide search.
- Integrating deep neural networks to improve solvers.

Submissions
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The  aim of  this workshop  is to  provide a  forum where researchers
currently working in  this area can exchange their  ideas, discuss new
developments  and explore  possible future  directions. Therefore,  we
welcome and encourage three types of submission:

1)  Work in  progress and  Original work.  Submissions of  an extended
abstract  or  a full  paper,  up  to 15  pages  in  the LIPIcs format
(https://submission.dagstuhl.de/series/details/LIPIcs#author),  about
unpublished ideas  will be reviewed  by a double-blind process and if
accepted  and  the  authors  agree  the final  version  will be  made
available on the workshop website.

2)  Already published  work. Authors  who are  interested in giving a
presentation  to  the  workshop's   audience  may  submit their  work
non-anonymously   while   indicating   where  this   work   has  been
published. We  will only accept work  which has been published in the
last calendar year (e.g., CPAIOR 2025, CP 2025, ECAI 2025, IJCAI 2025,
AAAI 2026, and any journal or conference held after May 2025).

3) Papers  not selected for  the main CP conference.   Decisions about
acceptance of these papers will be based on their reviews.

Contributions should be submitted in the form of a PDF file, following
LIPIcs guidelines, using the link https://submissions.floc26.org/soft/

The  type of  submission as  defined  above should  be clearly stated
during the submission. At least one author of each accepted paper must
attend the workshop.

This  workshop is  open  to all  members of  the  FLoC community.  All
workshop participants must pay the workshop fee.

Important Dates
---------------

Paper Submission deadline           May 15th
Notification of acceptance          May 28th
Early CP registration deadline      June 1st
Final version deadline              June 30th
Workshop Date                       July 24th

Organizers
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Simon de Givry
INRAE MIAT, Toulouse, France.
Email: simon.de-givry @ inrae.fr
Web: https://miat.inrae.fr/degivry

Samir Loudni
DAPI, IMT Atlantique, Nantes, France.
Email: samir.loudni @ imt-atlantique.fr
Web: https://cv.hal.science/samir-loudni

Program Committee
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Quentin Cappart, UCLouvain, Belgium and Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
Tias Gun, KU Leuven, Belgium
George Katsirelos, INRAE Paris Saclay, France
Elias B. Khalil, University of Toronto, Canada
Javier Larrosa, UPC, Barcelona, Spain
Jakob Nordström, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Lund University, Sweden
Albert Oliveras, UPC, Barcelona, Spain
Thomas Schiex, INRAE Toulouse, France
Sylvie Thiebaux, LAAS, Toulouse, France