The EATCS Award for the best theory paper at ETAPS 2026 was awarded to Isa Vialard, Joël Ouaknine and Quentin Guilmant for their paper "The value problem for weighted timed games with two clocks is undecidable", published in FoSSaCS 2026. The EATCS award is given each year to the best ETAPS papers in theoretical computer science.

The paper solves a long-standing open problem in the field of quantitative games. Weighted timed games were introduced in several works in the early 2000s, and constitute a fundamental model for formal verification and control. The key decision problems for quantitative games are the existence of winning strategies and the ‘value problem’: is the inf-sup across all pairs of Minimizer/Maximizer strategies smaller than a given rational? With three clocks, the value problem was proved undecidable in 2015. With a single clock, the problem was shown to be decidable in 2022. This paper finally closes the gap: with two clocks, both problems are shown to be undecidable using a novel and ingenious reduction, resulting in a deep contribution

MPI-SWS scientific director Joël Ouaknine was appointed as a Fellow by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS). Joël, who leads the “Foundations of Algorithmic Verification” research group, was appointed EATCS fellow for "fundamental contributions to the algorithmic analysis of dynamical systems and related formalisms."

The EATCS Fellows Program was established by the association in 2014 to recognize outstanding EATCS members for their scientific achievements in the field of Theoretical Computer Science.

Further Information: 

• https://eatcs.org/index.php/component/content/article/1-news/3028--eatcs-fellows-class-of-2026-named
• https://www.eatcs.org/index.php/eatcs-fellows
  

MPI-SWS has recently become a partner of the Max Planck School of Biomedical Artificial Intelligence, a new graduate school developing advanced AI methods for basic life sciences research. The school's focus will be on deepening understanding of biological systems by combining modern biomedical technologies with innovative approaches to artificial intelligence. The aim is to train a new generation of scientists who will develop algorithms that can learn, explain, and predict the principles of living systems and use these findings for molecular design.

The fellows of the school are internationally recognized researchers from 24 institutions -- including 14 Max Planck Institutes -- who come from a wide variety of fields, ranging from image and speech processing to immunology. From MPI-SWS, Krishna Gummadi, head of the Networked Systems research group, has been named a fellow of the newly founded graduate school.

The spokesperson of the new school is Karsten Borgwardt, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich, where the administration of the school will also be located. The new School will be financed under the funding agreement between the Max Planck Society and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, as well as through contributions from the participating institutions.

The plan is to accept the first applications for doctoral positions at the school starting in fall 2026, with the first BMAI cohort beginning their doctoral studies in fall 2027.

About the Max Planck Schools

Since 2019, the Max Planck Schools are offering a visionary graduate program to exceptional PhD candidates. The faculties of each School unite the best scholars in their field to teach and work with highly motivated doctoral candidates, all embedded in a unique network spanning across universities and non-university research organizations. The Max Planck Schools are looking for highly talented applicants with Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees from all over the world, aiming to further develop their research skills and network in one of the most innovative graduate programs in Germany.

Further information:

Announcement by the Max Planck Society:
 https://www.mpg.de/26250857/max-planck-school-of-biomedical-artificial-intelligence

Announcement by the Max Planck Schools:
https://www.maxplanckschools.org/de/news-events/start-der-max-planck-school-of-biomedical-artificial-intelligence

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS) have authored a total of 5 papers accepted to POPL 2026.  This is the ninth year in a row that MPI-SWS researchers have published 5+ papers in POPL.

Congratulations to all our POPL authors!

• A Verified High-Performance Composable Object Library for Remote Direct Memory Access
  Guillaume Ambal, George Hodgkins, Mark Madler, Gregory Chockler, Brijesh Dongol, Joe Izraelevitz, Azalea Raad, Viktor Vafeiadis


• Bounded Treewidth, Multiple Context-Free Grammars, and Downward ClosuresRemote
  C. Aiswarya, Pascal Baumann, Prakash Saivasan, Lia Schütze, Georg Zetzsche


• Endangered by the Language But Saved by the Compiler: Robust Safety via Semantic Back-Translation
  Niklas Mück, Aina Linn Georges, Derek Dreyer, Deepak Garg, Michael Sammler


• General Decidability Results for Systems with Continuous Counters
  A. R. Balasubramanian, Matthew Hague, Rupak Majumdar, Ramanathan S. Thinniyam, Georg Zetzsche


• Verifying Almost-Sure Termination for Randomized Distributed Algorithms
  Constantin Enea, Rupak Majumdar, Harshit Jitendra Motwani, V.R. Sathiyanarayana 

 

The Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School 2026
https://cmmrs.mpi-sws.org

August 3–7, 2026
Saarbruecken, Germany

Applications are requested from undergraduate students or Master’s students in computer and information science, computer engineering, or a related discipline to the 10th annual Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School.

The small, select group of attendees will be exposed to state-of-the-art research in computer science, have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with internationally leading scientists from three of the foremost academic institutions in research and higher learning in the US and in Europe, and network with like-minded students. They will get a sense of what it is like to pursue an academic or an industrial research career in computer science and have a head start when applying for graduate school.

For full consideration, applications should be received by February 14, 2026 AOE. Travel and accommodation will be covered for accepted students. Further information about the school and how to apply can be found at https://cmmrs.mpi-sws.org