[TYPES/announce] VerifyThis26: Call for problems

[Ayoun, Sacha-Elie]

Please distribute widely and consider submitting a problem yourself! :)



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VerifyThis Verification Competition 2026

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PROBLEMS

Competition to be held at ETAPS 2026

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://verifythis.github.io/__;!!IBzWLUs!WpvfaBqhwGHKgzT8-MHZ-JFUPQowqZh35oFaQGBE7cSxjRpeWFlpHVs2BcOmJFRHdP2jvH7KokEsljzkkH_1Kskg72hzS19arC5WI5c$ 

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Get involved, even if you cannot participate in the competition: provide a challenge!


IMPORTANT DATES

Problems submission deadline: 8 February 2026

Competition: 11 and 12 April 2026


ABOUT THE COMPETITION

VerifyThis 2026 will take place as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2026) on 11 and 12 April 2026. It is the 14th event in the VerifyThis competition series. Information on previous events and participants can be found at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://verifythis.github.io/__;!!IBzWLUs!WpvfaBqhwGHKgzT8-MHZ-JFUPQowqZh35oFaQGBE7cSxjRpeWFlpHVs2BcOmJFRHdP2jvH7KokEsljzkkH_1Kskg72hzS19arC5WI5c$ .


The aims of the competition are:

- to bring together those interested in formal verification, and to provide an engaging, hands-on, and fun opportunity for discussion.

- to evaluate the usability of program verification techniques and tools.


The competition will offer a number of challenges presented in natural language. Participants have to formalize the requirements, implement a solution, and formally verify the implementation for adherence to the specification. There are no restrictions on the programming language and verification technology used. Solutions will be judged for correctness, completeness and elegance.


CALL FOR PROBLEMS

To be able to offer a broad and diverse set of verification challenges, we are collecting submissions of ideas for verification challenges and problems. We welcome both problems of academic interest as well as challenges based on themes that are relevant in industry.

The competition proceeds in three rounds. In each round, participants are given 60 - 120 minutes to implement and prove specified properties of a given algorithm and/or data structure. They are free to use any verification tools they choose. Challenges are typically concerned with proving functional properties of the code in question (at least some part of a challenge involves expressing and proving properties specific to the algorithm/data structure in question). It is common for problems to have multiple parts, e.g. to prove some basic properties first, perhaps for a simplified case, and to progress to more-advanced goals.


We are looking for problem submissions. If you have recently encountered an interesting challenge in your work where formal techniques could be applied, please don't hesitate to submit it. Typical challenges have clear input-output specifications and often incorporate one or more of the following: heap allocation, concurrency, arithmetic reasoning. A challenge usually describes a problem using natural language together with some pseudocode, and then provides a list of properties or "verification tasks" of varied levels of difficulty. Contributors are encouraged to look at the Archive of previous problems.


An award will be given for any submission used in the competition. To avoid spoiling the competition for others, we ask that you keep the subject of your submission private. However, note that problem authors *are* allowed to participate in the competition!


Submissions should be sent by email to s.ayoun17 at imperial.ac.uk and thibault.dardinier at inf.ethz.ch. The submission deadline is February 8, 2026. We look forward to receiving your ideas!


Submission Criteria:

- A brief yet precise problem description, specifically identifying verification sub-tasks.

- A solution to the challenge is strongly encouraged, otherwise please provide a sketch of correctness.

- The description document can use any reasonable format, including plain text or PDF.


ORGANIZERS

* Sacha-Elie Ayoun, Imperial College London, UK

* Thibault Dardinier, EPFL, Switzerland



STEERING COMMITTEE

* Marieke Huisman, University of Twente, the Netherlands

* Rosemary Monahan, Maynooth University Maynooth, Ireland

* Peter Müller, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

* Mattias Ulbrich, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany


Call for Proposals Social Media Version: (255 chars no link, 278 with link shortening)

Submit your interesting academic or industry verification problems to the 2026 edition of the VerifyThis competition (co-located with ETAPS’26) by Feb. 8, 2026! For more information about the competition and submission process, see the call for problems: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://verifythis.github.io/onsite/cfp/__;!!IBzWLUs!WpvfaBqhwGHKgzT8-MHZ-JFUPQowqZh35oFaQGBE7cSxjRpeWFlpHVs2BcOmJFRHdP2jvH7KokEsljzkkH_1Kskg72hzS19a3cUwiWY$ .


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