[GECCO 2026] Call for Competitions
Winkler Stephan
[GECCO CFP] Call for Competitions: 2026 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026)
*** Open Calls***
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
GECCO Call-for-Competitions: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Competition+Proposals
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17 2023, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format. Topics include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
Competitions demonstrate how Evolutionary Computation and related techniques can be utilized in challenging practical, real-world and gaming settings. They also enable fair comparisons between algorithms and (for recurrent competitions) provide the possibility to follow the development of approaches over time.
We are offering the publication of short descriptions with algorithmic design, strengths and limitations as 2-page contributions to the GECCO Companion. The competition organizers decide whether they want to offer this to the competition participants — the 2-page paper will require at least one author to register at the conference as a presenter. The deadline for these short descriptions of the algorithms will be in April 2026, and they will be reviewed by the respective competition organizers. Your competition’s deadline can be after the 2-pagers are due, e.g. in June 2026.
*** IMPORTANT DATES ***
Proposals: November 17, 2025 (Anywhere on Earth)
Acceptance Decision: December 19, 2025 (Anywhere on Earth)
More Information and Contact
See the full Call-for-Competitions at: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Competition+Proposals
For questions regarding the workshops at GECCO 2025, please contact the Competition Chairs:
* Aishwaryaprajna
Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence (Education & Research)
Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Email: aishwaryaprajna (at) exeter.ac.uk
* Yuri Lavinas
Toulouse Capitole University, France
https://yurilavinas.github.io/
Email: yuri.lavinas (at) ut-capitole.fr
*** MORE INFORMATION ***
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
GECCO Call-for-Competitions: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Competition+Proposals
Follow us on X: https://x.com/GeccoConf
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sigevo-gecco
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format. Topics include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
The organizers of GECCO 2026 invite and warmly welcome corporate sponsors. Corporate sponsorships are a fantastic opportunity for companies to have a presence at the premier conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, a key field in artificial and computational intelligence. For recent and noteworthy examples of how these techniques can be used to build new AI systems, examples include automatic coding, merging foundation models for enhanced performance, or unlocking the potential of worldwide human expertise.
A corporate presence at GECCO provides a unique opportunity to raise corporate awareness, to interact with leading scientific minds in the field, to cultivate new collaborations, and to reach future employees with high potential. At the same time, such sponsorships make a key contribution to the continued success of GECCO, including enabling important cross-fertilization between academia and industry. The organization is highly appreciative of your corporate support and participation.
GECCO Call-for-Sponsors: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Call+for+Sponsors
*** SPONSORSHIP PACKAGES ***
GECCO 2026 has predefined sponsorship packages shown below, but also strives to tailor sponsorships to meet your company’s needs. In particular, this year the sponsorship packages match the hybrid mode of the event, including both an onsite and virtual presence.
GECCO 2026 offers four kinds of sponsorship packages:
* BRONZE: $1,000
* SILVER: $3,000
* GOLD: $6,000
* PLATINUM: $10,000
* STUDENT SPONSOR [NEW]
If you are interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, please contact us at gecc...@sigevo.org
*** LINKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ***
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/GECCO
Call for Papers: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Call+for+Papers
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format. Topics include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
As of now, the workshops that will be held at GECCO 2026 have been selected and can be found online: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshops
We cordially invite you to participate in these workshops and submit papers or extended abstracts where applicable. Details can be found in the workshops’ websites.
*** WORKSHOPS AT GECCO 2026 ***
* Industrial Applications of Metaheuristics
Organizers: Silvino Fernández Alzueta, Thomas Stützle
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8248
* Evolutionary Computation for the Automated Design of Algorithms
Organizers: Daniel Tauritz, Emma Hart, Gisele L. Pappa
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8243
* Evolutionary Rule-based Machine Learning
Organizers: Michael Heider, Hiroki Shiraishi, Fumito Uwano, Connor Schönberner
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8249
* Analysing algorithmic behaviour of optimisation heuristics
Organizers: Anna V Kononova, Niki van Stein, Thomas Bäck, Daniela Zaharie, Fabio Caraffini,
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8238
* BENCH@GECCO26 - Good Benchmarking Practices for Evolutionary Computation
Organizers: Vanessa Volz, Boris Naujoks, Carola Doerr, Mike Preuss, Olaf Mersmann, Pascal Kerschke
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8239
* Decomposition Techniques in Evolutionary Optimization
Organizers: Bilel Derbel, Ke Li, Xiaodong Li, Saúl Zapotecas, Qingfu Zhang
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8241
* Evolutionary Computation and Explainable AI
Organizers: Jaume Bacardit, Alexander Brownlee, Stefano Cagnoni, Martin Fyvie, Giovanni Iacca, David Walker
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8244
* Evolutionary Computation for Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems
Organizers: Shaukat Ali Ali, Paolo Arcaini
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8242
* Evolving self-organisation
Organizers: Eleni Nisioti, Sebastian Risi, Marcello Baryli, Alexander Mordvintsev, Ettore Randazzo, Eyvind Niklasson
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8246
* Graph-based Genetic Programming
Organizers: Travis Desell, Roman Kalkreuth, Yuri Lavinas, Giorgia Nadizar, Giovanni Squillero, Alberto Tonda
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8247
* Large Language Models for and with Evolutionary Computation
Organizers: Roman Senkerik, Niki van Stein, Erik Hemberg, Una-May O’Reilly, Pier Luca Lanzi, Michal Pluhacek, Joel Lehman, Tome Eftimov
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8250
* Latin American applications of Optimization and AI
Organizers: Felipe Meza Obando, Saul Calderón Ramírez, Cindy Calderón-Arce, Miguel Abreu Cárdenas, Sebastian Rojas Gonzalez
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8252
* Multimodal Data-Driven Optimization and Learning
Organizers: Xueming Yan, Bing Xue, Yaochu Jin
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8251
* Open Source Software for Evolutionary Computation
Organizers: Stefan Wagner, Michael Affenzeller
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8245
* Program Synthesis
Organizers: Alberto Tonda, Alcides Fonseca, Fabricio Olivetti de França, Giovanni Squillero
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8253
* Quantum Optimization
Organizers: Alberto Moraglio, Mayowa Ayodele, Francisco Chicano, Ofer Shir, Lee Spector, Matthieu Parizy, Zakaria Abdelmoiz Dahi
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8254
* Surrogate-Assisted Evolutionary Optimisation
Organizers: Alma Rah, Richard Everson, Jonathan Fieldsend, Handing Wang, Yaochu Jin, Tinkle Chugh
https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshop?itemId=8255
*** MORE INFORMATION ***
José Ignacio Hidalgo Pérez
Workshops Chair
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
hidalgo <at> ucm.es
Lee Spector
Workshops Chair
Amherst College, USA
lspector <at> amherst.edu
Leonardo Trujillo
General Chair
Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico
leonardo.trujillo <at> tectijuana.edu.mx
Ting Hu
Editor-in-Chief
Queen's University, Canada
ting.hu <at> queensu.ca
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sigevo-gecco
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format.
The Student Workshop at GECCO 2026 aims to provide a platform for graduate and undergraduate students to present their research on the topic at GECCO. This session workshop supports students with their scientific work and facilitates their inclusion in the research community.
Topics relevant for the Student Workshop at GECCO 2026 include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
The student workshop call for papers is open to all papers mainly authored by students (Bachelor, Master or PhD) and covering topics related to genetic and evolutionary computation, for example related to any of the GECCO 2026 tracks (https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Tracks ).
Your submission of up to 4 pages is required to contain previously unpublished work.
Please see the GECCO website for details: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Call+for+Student+Workshop
*** IMPORTANT DATES ***
* Submission Opening Workshop Papers: February 02, 2026
* Workshop submission deadline: March 27, 2026
* Decision notification: April 24, 2026
* Camera-ready submission: May 5, 2026
* Author's mandatory registration: May 11, 2026
*** MORE INFORMATION ***
Evelyne Lutton
Student Workshop Chair
Inrae, France
evelyne.lutton <at> inrae.fr
Pierrick Legrand
Student Workshop Chair
Bordeaux National Institute, France
pierrick.legrand <at> bordeaux-inp.fr
Leonardo Trujillo
General Chair
Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico
leonardo.trujillo <at> tectijuana.edu.mx
Ting Hu
Editor-in-Chief
Queen's University, Canada
ting.hu <at> queensu.ca
*** LINKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ***
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/GECCO
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sigevo-gecco
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format.
*** Hot OFF THE PRESS ***
The Hot Off the Press (HOP) track offers authors of recent papers the opportunity to present their work to the GECCO community, both by giving an oral or poster presentation on one of the three main days of the conference and by having a 2-page abstract appear in the Proceedings Companion, in which the workshop papers, late-breaking abstracts, and tutorials also appear. We invite researchers to submit summaries of their own work recently published in well-respected conferences and journals. Contributions are selected based on their scientific quality and their relevance to the GECCO community.
Please see the GECCO website for details: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Call+for+HOPs
*** LATE BREAKING ABSTRACTS ***
Two-page abstracts describing late-breaking developments in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation are solicited for presentation at the Late-Breaking Abstracts Workshop (LBA) of the 2026 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026), and for inclusion in the conference proceedings companion, available to all attendees of the conference and in the ACM Digital Library.
Following the success of the previous years, authors of accepted submissions will be asked to prepare a poster summarizing their contributions. In the interactive Late-Breaking Abstracts poster sessions attendees will have the opportunity to interact with authors and enjoy a dynamic forum to share and spread scientific ideas.
Please see the GECCO website for details: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Call+for+LBAs
*** IMPORTANT DATES ***
* HOP and LBA submission deadline: April 3, 2026
* HOP and LBA acceptance notifications: April 28, 2026
*** MORE INFORMATION ***
Bing Xue
HOP Co-Chair
Bing.Xue <at> ecs.vuw.ac.nz
Christine Zarges
HOP Co-Chair
chz8 <a> aber.ac.uk
Ying Bi
LBA Co-Chair
Yingbi <a> zzu.edu.cn
Heike Trautmann
LBA Co-Chair
heike.trautmann <a> uni-paderborn.de
Leonardo Trujillo
General Chair
Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico
leonardo.trujillo <at> tectijuana.edu.mx
Ting Hu
Editor-in-Chief
Queen's University, Canada
ting.hu <at> queensu.ca
*** LINKS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ***
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/GECCO
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sigevo-gecco
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format. Topics include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
The workshops that will be held at GECCO 2026 have been selected and can be found online: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshops
Winkler Stephan
GECCO Website: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2026) will be held in San José, Costa Rica, from July 13 to July 17, 2026, and will present the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation, in a hybrid format. Topics include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence, complex systems, evolutionary combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics, evolutionary machine learning, evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary numerical optimization, neuroevolution, real-world applications, theory, hybrids and more.
The workshops that will be held at GECCO 2026 can be found online: https://gecco-2026.sigevo.org/Workshops
We cordially invite you to participate in these workshops and submit papers or extended abstracts where applicable. Details can be found in the workshops’ websites.
Please note that the deadline for submissions to workshops at GECCO 2026 has been extended to April 03, 2026.
This extended deadline coincides with the deadline for submission to the Hot off the Press Track as well as the Late Breaking Abstracts Track at GECCO 2026.
*** WORKSHOPS AT GECCO 2026 ***
* Student Workshop
Chairs: Pierrick Legrand, Evelyne Lutton