[Caml-list] [VerifyThis 2027] Announcement and Call for Problems

[Caml-list] [VerifyThis 2027] Announcement and Call for Problems

[Mário Pereira]

[Please distribute. Apologies for multiple postings]

*******************************************************************************
VerifyThis Verification Competition 2027
ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PROBLEMS
Competition to be held at ETAPS 2027
https://verifythis.github.io/
********************************************************************************

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

IMPORTANT DATES
Problems submission deadline: Friday, 18 December 2026, AoE
Competition: 10 and 11 April 2027

ABOUT THE COMPETITION
VerifyThis 2027 will take place as part of the European Joint Conferences on
Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS 2027) on 10 and 11 April 2027. It is the
15th event in the VerifyThis competition series. Information on previous events
and participants can be found at https://verifythis.github.io.

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 problems of both academic interest and 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 <https://verifythis.github.io/onsite/archive/>.

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, with subject line "[VerifyThis 2027
Problem]" to mjp.pereira@fct.unl.pt and neea.rusch@it.uu.se. The submission
deadline is December 18, 2026, AoE. 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
* Mário Pereira, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal
* Neea Rusch, Uppsala University, Sweden

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