will happen from July 24th to July 28th 2023, at the Campus Center of the University of Kassel, Germany. will be preceded by the Highlights Collaborative Research Week (HCRW), from 17th to 23rd at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Kassel.

key features and novelties:

  • Highlights is a conference without publication, where spearkers give short presentations of their best work.
  • For this year's edition, there will be no participation fees.
  • The 2023 program chair is Supratik Chakraborty.
  • The 2023 organisation chair is Stefan Göller.
  • The conference is now five days, tutorials included.
  • A group chat has been set up to facilitate exchanges among the community. You should join it.
  • The Highlights Collaborative Research Week (HCRW) is a new meeting, the week before the conference (from July 17th to July 23rd), devoted to research collaborations between Highlights participants. HCRW happens the week after ICALP'23 in Paderborn, for encouraging direct commutation.
  • The Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme (HESSS) helps organising and funding collaborations in the area.

is the eleventh of the series of international conferences Highlights of Logic, Games and Automata, aiming at integrating the community working in algorithmic model theory, automata theory, databases, games for logic and verification, logic, and verification. Papers from these areas are dispersed across many conferences, which makes them difficult to follow. A visit to the Highlights conference should offer a wide picture of the latest research in the field and a chance to meet everybody in the community, not just those who happen to publish in one particular proceedings volume. There are no publications.

We encourage you to attend and present your best work, be it already published or not, at

Scope

Representative areas include, but are not limited to:
  • Algorithmic model theory
  • Automata theory
  • Databases
  • Games for logic and verification
  • Logic
  • Verification

Important Dates

Submission deadlineApril 25
NotificationMay 5
Registration deadlineJune 29
Highlights Collaborative Research WeekJuly 17 - July 21
ConferenceJuly 24 - July 28

Registration

Registration for has been opened. You can register here until June 29.

Highlights Code of Conduct

Highlights is committed to be a respectful forum for its participants, free from any discrimination or harassment of any nature, particularly when abuse of power is involved. All Highlights attendees are expected to behave accordingly.

If you experience or witness discrimination, harassment or other unethical behavior at the conference, we encourage you to seek advice and remedy by consulting with the SafeToC counsellor of Highlights: Sylke Ernst.

The local organizers are entitled to remove registered participants from the conference (without refunding the conference fees) if they are deemed to pose an ethical risk to other participants.

Invited Talks and Tutorials

Tutorials

Bernd FinkbeinerSaarland University and CISPA, Germany
Edouard BonnetENS Lyon, France

Invited Talks

Udi BokerReichman University, Israel
Sophie PinchinatIRISA, France
Sven ScheweUniversity of Liverpool, UK
Meena MahajanInstitute of Mathematical Sciences, India
Nathalie SznajderSorbonne Université, CNRS, LIP6, Paris

Modalities of Attendance

is an event that will take place on-site (barring unforeseen circumstances), and the preferred form of participation is in person. Remote attendance via a video stream will also be offered, but with limited possible interactions for these participants.

Before coming from far away, please review how your trip and international flights are contributing to climate change. We encourage you to take the train as much as possible, possibly taking the opportunity for visiting colleagues on the way and thus decomposing the travel into smaller pieces.

More generally, we encourage you to make the most of your stay. This means extending your journey to the previous and/or following weeks for more scientific activities in Kassel and around. Several initiatives are here to help you in this task:

  • You can participate in the Highlights Collaborative Research Week (HCRW), July 17-23, the week before highlights, in Kassel). We especially encourage you to come to the HCRW if you attend ICALP'23, which happens just before the HCRW, in Paderborn.
  • You can attend ICALP'23, which takes place in Paderborn, July 10-14.
  • You can attend CAV'23, which takes place in Paris, July 17-22
  • You can use the Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme (HESSS) for finding collaborators and organising visits.

Getting There

The Highlights conference itself takes place in the Campus Centre near Holländischer Platz. You can find a list of all relevant locations of the university here. Getting around Kassel can be done on the trams and buses of the Kasseler Verkehrsgesellschaft, by foot or with one of the 400 bikes that can be rented (for more information see nextbike).

Below, you can find an overview of how to get to Northern Hesse, depending on the mode of transportation.

by train The railway station for long distance trains is Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe, whereas for regional travel you could alternatively use Kassel main station (Hauptbahnhof). Train times and more information is available at Deutsche Bahn.
by car Around the campus Holländischer Platz, there are only very few parking spaces in the surrounding streets (Hentschelstraße, Mönchebergstraße). All parking spaces are subject to a fee. At the other locations, you will find parking spaces in the surrounding streets.
by plane The closest airports to Kassel are Kassel-Calden, Frankfurt, Hannover and Paderborn. You can take a taxi from Kassel-Calden or use bus route 130 to get to Kassel city centre. You can find the timetables on the website of the Nordhessischer VerkehrsVerbund (NVV)

Normally, you require a visa and residence permit to enter Germany. Nationals from EU memberstates, Iceland Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are generally not required to obtain a visa to enter Germany. Similarly, nationals from Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea and the USA do not need a visa to enter. See here for a full list of countries enjoying visa exceptions. If you require an invitation letter, please contact Stefan Göller and provide your full address, arrival and departure date.

Staying There

Below, we provide you with a list of potential accomodations in Kassel. Alternatively, you can use the accomodation search providded by the city Kassel, which can be reached here.

IntercityHotel Wilhelmshöher Allee 241 Directly across the train station Wilhelmshöhe
Stadthotel Kassel Am Florentiner Platz 31 In the inner city
Hotel am Rathaus Wilhelmsstraße 29 In the inner city
Renthof Kassel Renthof 3 In the inner city

Highlights Collaborative Research Week

also organises an extra week, the Highlights Collaborative Research Week (HCRW) from July 17th to July 23rd, at the University of Kassel.

Participants to Highlights can register to this week, and are then free to organise any scientific activities. It is up to you to decide what this week should be. Possibilities can be to

  • meet someone in particular
  • organise or attend a seminar/workshop/reading group
  • gather for solving open problems

From July 17th to July 23rd, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Kassel will be open. Participants will be able to meet, to exchange, and to work together. Participants are welcome to organise the activities they want.

We encourage participants to propose activities in advance. For participating, just mention it during the registration process, and register to the HCRW stream in the Zulip chat. This is the place where the activities during the week will be organised. You can declare there what are your center of interests, what topic you would be happy to work on with other participants, or what activities you would like to participate to.

Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme

The Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme (HESSS) is an incentive for collaborations between participants to the conference and researchers working in research units reachable by train from the conference locations. The objective is to foster interactions with low carbon footprint. The mechanism is as follows:

  • Research units wanting to participate in the scheme are listed below. These units are willing to fund collaborations between highlights' participants and their members.
  • The pair of a Highlights' participant and a member of one of a listed research unit submit a proposal which takes the form of a mail containing names, period of collaboration, and a sentence describing the activity planned. It has to be sent to the HESSS contact person of the research unit.
  • The decision of acceptation is up to the research unit. It may be in particular subject to scientific scope, number or requests, or, eg, favouring distant participants.
  • The only strict rule is that the visit should be around the moment of Highlights, and no plane should be taken by the visitor between Highlights and the visit.
  • Research units interested in participating in the program should contact us through the appropriate channels on Zulip.

Committees

Program Committee

Organizing Committee

Steering Committee

Sponsors