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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 [email protected] and
[email protected]. 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$
.
