CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS HIGHLIGHTS OF LOGIC, GAMES, AND AUTOMATA (Kassel,
Germany, 24 — 28 July 2023)

*HIGHLIGHTS’23* is the eleventh in 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.

*HIGHLIGHTS’23* is scheduled *from July 24 to July 28, 2023* at
the Campus Center of the
*University of Kassel, Germany*. The main conference will be preceded by
the
*Highlights Collaborative Research Week (HCRW), from July 17 to July 21,
2023*
at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the
University of Kassel.

*HIGHLIGHTS’23* key features:

- HIGHLIGHTS is a conference without publication, where speakers give
short presentations of their best work.
- *(new)* The conference will span five days, including tutorials.
- *(new)* There is an early round of submissions and notifications to
help with travel planning.
- *(new)* The *Highlights’ Collaborative Research Week* (*HCRW*) is a
new initiative meant to facilitate research collaborations/discussions
between participants. HCRW is scheduled from July 17 to July 21, 2023, i.e.
the week before HIGHLIGHTS’23 and after ICALP’23 (in Paderborn, Germany).
- The *Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme* (*HESSS*) is intended to
help participants find collaborators and organize visits around HIGHLIGHTS.

We encourage you to attend and present your best work, be it already
published or not, at *HIGHLIGHTS’23*.

SCOPE

Representative areas include, but are not restricted to:

- Algorithmic model theory
- Automata theory
- Databases
- Games for logic and verification
- Logic
- Verification

IMPORTANT DATES AND INFORMATION

- Main conference page: https://highlights-conference.org/2023/
- HCRW page: https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hcrw
- HESSS page: https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hesss
- Submission page: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/Highlights2023
- Registration page: TBA
- *Early submission deadline: February 17*
- Early notification: February 28
- *Regular submission deadline: April 25*
- Regular notification: May 5
- Early registration: TBA
- *Highlights’ Collaborative Research Weak* (*HCRW*): July 17 - July 21,
2023.
- Conference: July 24 - July 28, 2023 (Tutorial day: July 24).

INVITED TALKS AND TUTORIALS Tutorials:

- Bernd Finkbeiner (Saarland Univ and CISPA, Germany)
- Édouard Bonnet (ENS Lyon, France)

Invited talks:

- Udi Boker (Reichman Univ, Israel)
- Véronique Bruyère (Univ of Mons, Belgium)
- Meena Mahajan (Institute of Mathematical Sciences, India)
- Sophie Pinchinat (IRISA, France)
- Sven Schewe (Univ of Liverpool, UK)

MODALITIES OF ATTENDANCE

*HIGHLIGHTS’23* 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
(https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hcrw), July 17-21*) in the week
before HIGHLIGHTS, in Kassel. We especially encourage you to come to
*HCRW* if you are planning to attend ICALP’2023
(https://icalp2023.cs.upb.de/), which happens just before *HCRW*, in
Paderborn.
- You can attend ICALP’2023 (https://icalp2023.cs.upb.de/) (July 10-14,
in Paderborn)
- You can attend CAV’2023 (http://www.i-cav.org/2023/) (July 17-22, in
Paris)
- You can use the *Highlights Extended Stay Support Scheme* (*HESSS
(https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hesss)*) for finding
collaborators and organising visits.

[EARLY] SUBMISSIONS AND GUIDELINES

Submissions should take the form of a short abstract describing the content
of the presentation and its interest. It should serve as a proposal for a
presentation. Hence, submissions should have a single author — the speaker.
They can concern any recently published, to be published, or ongoing work
of the speaker. We expect you to present your favourite result of the year,
so there should be at most one submission per speaker. The abstract should
list co-authors, if any. Optionally, an extended abstract of up to two
pages may be attached as a PDF file.

We encourage both young and senior researchers to present.

The *early round of submissions is open until February 17, 2023*. By
submitting before this deadline, you will profit from an *early
notification by February 28, 2023* which may help you in organising your
journey. The *regular submission deadline is April 25, 2023*, with a
*notification by May 5, 2023*.

Submissions will not lead to publications. There are no formal proceedings
and we encourage the presentation of work published or presented elsewhere.

The talk (which is short, around 10 minutes) can be doubled with a poster.
In this case, it has to be sent more than one week before the event, and
will be printed by the organising team.

*Submission page:* https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/Highlights2023

HIGHLIGHTS’ COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WEEK (HCRW)

*HIGHLIGHTS’23* will be organising an extra week, the *Highlights’
Collaborative Research Week* (*HCRW*), *from July 17 to July 21, at the
University of Kassel*.

Participants to HIGHLIGHTS can register for this week, and are then free to
organise any scientific activity. 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.

HIGHLIGHTS organising team is offering the opportunity, the working space
and support at the university, and some web-tools for the scientific
organisation.

We encourage participants to propose activities in advance. Please contact
the program chair (Supratik Chakraborty) and the organisation chair (Stefan
Göller) to communicate your proposals.

- *HCRW* webpage: https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hcrw
- To propose activities: Contact Supratik Chakraborty and Stefan Göller
- Registration for HCRW will happen along with HIGHLIGHTS.

HIGHLIGHTS EXTENDED STAY SUPPORT SCHEME (HESSS)

The *HESSS* is an incentive for collaborations between participants of the
conference and researchers working in research units reachable by train
from the conference location. The objective is to foster interactions with
low carbon footprint. The mechanism is as follows:

- Research units wanting to participate in the scheme are/will be listed
on the webpage: https://highlights-conference.org/2023/hcrw. These units
are willing to fund collaborations between HIGHLIGHTS participants and
their members.
- The pair of a HIGHLIGHTS participant and a member of a listed research
unit submit a proposal, which takes the form of an email containing names,
period of collaboration, and a sentence describing the planned activity. It
has to be sent to the *HESSS* contact person of the research unit.
- The decision of acceptance is up to the research unit. In particular,
it may be subject to scientific scope, number or requests, or e.g.,
favouring distant participants.
- The only strict rule is that the visit should be around HIGHLIGHTS,
and no airplane should be taken by the visitor to travel from HIGHLIGHTS to
the visit location.
- Research units interested in participating in the program should
contact Thomas Colcombet.

COMMITTEES

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

- S. Akshay (India)
- Suguman Bansal (USA)
- Nathalie Bertrand (France)
- Supratik Chakraborty (India) (Chair)
- Krishnendu Chatterjee (Austria)
- Javier Esparza (Germany)
- Sandra Kiefer (Germany)
- Antonina Kolokolova (Canada)
- Orna Kupferman (Israel)
- Annabelle McIver (Australia)
- Madhusudan Parthasarathy (USA)
- Joanna Ochremiak (France)
- Daniela Petrisan (France)
- Michał Pilipczuk (Poland)
- Nir Piterman (Sweden)
- Jean-François Raskin (Belgium)

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

- Stefan Göller (chair)
- Alina Kappes
- Klaus Wich
- Matthias Wolf
- Katja Wuchterl

SAFETOC COUNSELOR

- Sylke Ernst

STEERING COMMITTEE

- León Bohn (webmaster)
- Antonio Casares (publicity chair)
- Thomas Colcombet (chair)
- Sławek Lasota
- Luc Segoufin
- Sophie Tison