CALL FOR PAPERS

The submission deadline has been extended to July 19 (paper registration) and July 22 (full paper submission).

International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC) is an annual conference covering all aspects of parameterized and exact algorithms and complexity. Its 15th edition will happen online in 2020.

topics
========================

Papers presenting original research in the area are sought, including but not limited to:
  •         new techniques for the design and analysis of parameterized and exact algorithms;
  •         fixed-parameter tractability and kernelization results;
  •         parameterized complexity theory;
  •         parameterized (in)approximability results;
  •         relationships between parameterized complexity and traditional complexity classifications;
  •         applications of parameterized and exact computation; and
  •         implementation issues of exact, parameterized, and kernelization algorithms.
Theoretically grounded studies on parameterized and exact computations and kernelization for real-world applications and algorithmic engineering are especially encouraged.

Special events
========================

An invited talk is planned by the 2020 EATCS-IPEC Nerode Prize winner. In addition, there will be a session presenting the results of the 5th Parameterized Algorithms and Computational Experiments Challenge (PACE 2020).

Conference
========================

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IPEC 2020 will be an online event taking place on 14–18 December 2020. On each day, there will be two roughly 90-minute sessions of invited and contributed talks with a 30-minute break in between, scheduled between 8am and noon UTC (i.e., spanning European morning / Asian afternoon or evening). The conference will also feature virtual rooms for coffee break discussions. Participating in the conference will be free of charge.

Accepted papers will be published in the symposium proceedings in the Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs) series, based at Schloss Dagstuhl. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their work at the symposium (preferably by a live online talk or at the very least by a prerecorded talk), and to incorporate the comments from the program committee. Authors are also encouraged to be present at virtual coffee breaks at least after the session with their talk.

A special issue of Algorithmica is planned for selected papers presented at IPEC 2020.

Awards
========================

The program committee may award a Best Paper Award and a Best Student Paper Award, both of which may be exceptionally split between two or more papers. A student is someone who has not received a PhD degree before the full paper submission deadline. A paper accepted to the conference is eligible for the Best Student Paper Award if either all its authors are students, or besides student co-author(s) there is one non-student co-author that confirms, at the moment of submission, that a clear majority of conceptual work on the paper was done by the student co-author(s). In the latter case, it is moreover expected that a student gives a presentation at the conference. Papers co-authored by members of the programme committee are not eligible for the Best Paper Award or the Best Student Paper Award.

Submission guidelines
========================

Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of up to 12 pages (excluding the title page and references section) in LIPIcs style, in English, describing original unpublished research. The title page consists exclusively of the title of the paper, author information, and abstract. Results previously published in another conference proceedings or journal (or scheduled for publication prior to IPEC) will not be considered. Simultaneous submission to other conferences with published proceedings or to journals is not allowed. However, the authors are encouraged to make full versions of their submissions freely accessible in an online repository such as ArXiv or ECCC.

The extended abstract should contain a summary of the main results, their motivation and importance, and evidence of their correctness. All claims made in the extended abstract must be fully justified in a clearly marked appendix that will be read at the discretion of the program committee. The authors may choose to either present in the appendix only the material excluded from the extended abstract or to attach a full version of the paper as the appendix. In either case, the authors should take a particular notice that the extended abstract should present their work in a comprehensible and self-contained way and the quality of the presentation in the extended abstract will be taken into account by the programme committee.

Authors must submit their papers electronically via EasyChair. The use of the LIPIcs style file (https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/publications/lipics/instructions-for-authors) is mandatory; no changes to font size, page margins, etc., are permitted. Program committee members (except the co-chairs) are allowed to submit papers.

Important Dates
========================

Paper Registration: July 15 19, 2020 (AoE)
Full Paper Submission: July 22, 2020 (AoE)
Notification of acceptance: September 18, 2020
Camera-ready and registration: September 30, 2020
Conference dates: December 14–18, 2020