Last Call: Workshop on Soft Constraints Discrete Optimization and Machine Learning @ FLoC 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 (firm deadline)
              ********************************************

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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unpublished ideas  will be reviewed  by a double-blind process  and if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 or  SAT conference.  Decisions
about acceptance  of these papers will  be based on their  reviews. By
selecting this  category, you  agree that only  the organizers  of the
workshop will have access to your CP/SAT 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 (firm deadline)
Notification of acceptance                 May 28th
Early FLoC Workshop 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.d...@inrae.fr
Web: https://miat.inrae.fr/degivry

Samir Loudni
DAPI, IMT Atlantique, Nantes, France.
Email: samir....@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