LION20 Scope
The 20th Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN Conference
June 15–19, 2026, Milan, Italy

The main purpose of the venue is to bring together experts from these areas to discuss new ideas and methods, challenges and opportunities in various application areas, general trends and specific developments.
The large variety of heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms for hard optimization problems raises numerous interesting and challenging issues. Practitioners are confronted with the burden of selecting the most appropriate method, in many cases through an expensive algorithm configuration and parameter tuning process, and subject to a steep learning curve. Scientists seek theoretical insights and demand a sound experimental methodology for evaluating algorithms and assessing strengths and weaknesses. A necessary prerequisite for this effort is a clear separation between the algorithm and the experimenter, who, in too many cases, is "in the loop" as a crucial intelligent learning component. Both issues are related to designing and engineering ways of "learning" about the performance of different techniques, and ways of using past experience about the algorithm behavior to improve performance in the future. Intelligent learning schemes for mining the knowledge obtained from different runs or during a single run can improve the algorithm development and design process and simplify the applications of high-performance optimization methods. Combinations of algorithms can further improve the robustness and performance of the individual components provided that sufficient knowledge of the relationship between problem instance characteristics and algorithm performance is obtained.
Topics of Interest. Topics related to Operations research, learning and intelligent optimization, including but not limited to:
All deadlines are Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC-12h).
Types of Submissions
When submitting a paper to LION 20, authors are required to select one of the following three types of papers:
You can submit original and unpublished work either as a long paper (12-15 pages, including references) or short paper (6-11 pages, including references). You can choose to add an appendix.
Paper Format
Please prepare your paper in English using the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) template. Papers must be submitted in PDF.
Submission System
All papers must be submitted using OpenReview.
All abstracts (for presentation only) must be submitted using OpenReview.
Review Process
Please note that the review process for LION 20 is single blind.
Proceedings
Papers accepted into the LION20 proceedings will be published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).

Special Issue
Accepted papers at LION20 will be invited to submit extended versions to a special issue. All manuscripts are subject to peer review. The details of the SI and submissions will be available during LION20.
In addition to submissions about general LION themes, we also welcome submissions related to one of our special sessions. The special sessions will be part of the regular conference and are subject to the same peer-review as all other submissions.
Best Paper Awards
The Best Paper Awards at LION20 will recognize outstanding contributions based on originality, technical quality, and impact. Selected papers will be honored during the conference, with each recipient receiving a certificate and a monetary prize.
Francesco Archetti (Consorzio Milano Ricerche, Italy)
Antonio Candelieri, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Maximilian Schiffer (Professor for Business Analytics & Intelligent Systems, Technical University of Munich, Germany).
Roberto Battiti (University of Trento, Italy - Head of the Steering Committee)
Francesco Archetti (Consorzio Milano Ricerche, Italy)
Christian Blum (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain)
Mauro Brunato (University of Trento, Italy)
Carlos A. Coello-Coello (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico)
Clarisse Dhaenens (University of Lille, France)
Paola Festa (University of Napoli, Italy)
Martin Charles Golumbic (University of Haifa, Israel)
Youssef Hamadi (Tempero Tech, France)
Milan Hladik, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Laetitia Jourdan (University of Lille, France)
Nikolaos Matsatsinis (Technical University of Crete, Greece)
Hossein Moosaei, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Czech Republic
Panos Pardalos (University of Florida, USA)
Mauricio Resende (University of Washington, USA)
Meinolf Sellmann (InsideOpt, USA)
Yaroslav Sergeyev (University of Calabria, Italy)
Dimitris Simos (SBA Research, Austria)
Thomas Stuetzle (University of Bruxelles, Belgium)
Kevin Tierney (Bielefeld University, Germany)
Yingqian Zhang, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.
The LION 20 will be hosted by Universita' degli Studi Milano Bicocca
Please contact us by email regarding any queries you may have in relation to the conference or general information.Email: antonio.candelieri@unimib.it