*MIC 2026 - 16th Metaheuristics International Conference* 8 - 11 June, 2026 Ischia Island (Napoli), Italy www.mic2026.unina.it ********************* Submission deadline: February 27, 2026 Number of days to deadline: 21 ********************* Aims, Themes & Scope: As per tradition, looking at the previous editions of the MIC conferences, this conference focuses on the progress of the area of Metaheuristics and their applications and provides an opportunity to the international research community to discuss recent research results, to develop new ideas and collaborations, and to meet old friends and make new ones in relaxed atmosphere. MIC 2026 strives to propose a high-quality program that will be completed by a number of invited talks, tutorials, workshops and special sessions. Solicited contributions can cover a variety of topics including but not limited to: - Metaheuristic techniques such as tabu search, simulated annealing, iterated local search, variable neighborhood search, memory-based optimization, dynamic local search, evolutionary algorithms, memetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, scatter search, path relinking, etc. - Techniques that enhance the usability and increase the potential of metaheuristic algorithms such as reactive search mechanisms for self-tuning, offline metaheuristic algorithm configuration techniques, algorithm portfolios, parallelization of metaheuristic algorithms, etc. - Empirical and theoretical research in metaheuristics including large-scale experimental analyses, algorithm comparisons, new experimental methodologies, engineering methodologies for metaheuristic algorithms, search space analysis, theoretical insights into properties of metaheuristic algorithms, etc. - High-impact applications of metaheuristics in fields such as bioinformatics, electrical and mechanical engineering, telecommunications, sustainability, business, scheduling and timetabling. Particularly welcome are innovative applications of metaheuristic algorithms that have a potential of pushing research frontiers. - Contributions on the combination of metaheuristic techniques with those from other areas, such as integer programming, constraint programming, machine learning, etc. - Contributions on the use of metaheuristic techniques in machine learning and deep learning for finetuning and neural architecture search, etc. - Challenging applications areas such as continuous, mixed discrete-continuous, multi-objective, stochastic, or dynamic problems. MIC 2026 accepts submissions in three different formats: 1. Regular paper: novel and original research contributions of a maximum of 15 pages (LNCS format) 2. Short paper: extended abstract of novel research works of 6 pages (LNCS format) 3. Oral presentation: one page abstract describing the content of an high-quality manuscript that has recently, within the last year, been submitted or accepted for journal publication. All submitted papers will undergo a review process. All papers must be prepared using Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) template, and must be submitted in PDF using the easychair system (https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=mic2026). Accepted papers in categories 1 and 2 will be published as post-proceedings in Lecture Notes in Computer Science series by Springer. In addition, a post-conference special issue in Journal of Heuristics will be considered for the significantly extended and revised versions of selected accepted papers from categories 1 and 2. IMPORTANT DATES: All deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC-12h). - December 1, 2025, submission open/registration open - February 27, 2026, submission deadline - March 27, 2026, notification of acceptance - April 10, 2026, early registration deadline - June 8-11, 2026, conference at Ischia, Italy CONTACT INFORMATION: Paola Festa (E-mail: infomic2026@unina.it, paola.festa@unina.it) Dept. of Mathematics and Applications “R. Caccioppoli”, University of Napoli “Federico II”