About EUROPT 2025
The 22nd EUROPT Conference on Advances in Continuous Optimization (EUROPT 2025) focuses on recent advances in continuous optimization, covering theory, algorithms, software, and applications. We aim to bring together both theoretical and applied researchers in the field. The event features invited plenary lectures, as well as invited and contributed sessions. The conference is preceded by the fifth edition of the EUROPT Summer School, taking place between June 27-28. EUROPT 2025 is hosted by the Operational Research Group, School of Mathematical Sciences.
Where
University of Southampton,
United Kingdom
When
29 June - 2 July 2025
Plenary Speakers
Plenary speakers at EUROPT 2025
Streams and stream organisers
The conference will feature sessions on the following topics
Applications: AI, uncertainty management and sustainability
Organisers: Selin Ahipasaoglu, Hongyu Zhang
Applications: Finance
Organisers: Panos Parpas, Houduo Qi
Applications: Image and Vision
Organiser: Xiaohao Cai
Bilevel and multilevel optimization
Organisers: Qingna Li, Alain Zemkoho
Conic programming
Organiser: Miguel Anjos
Generalized convexity and monotonicity
Organisers: Sorin Grad, Felipe Lara, Vuong Phan
Global optimization
Organisers: Sonia Cafieri, Eligius Hendrix, Dmitri Kvasov
Interior point methods and applications
Organiser: Stefano Cipolla
Large scale optimization
Organisers: Stefania Bellavia, Benedetta Morini
Multiobjective and vector optimization
Organisers: Gabriele Eichfelder, Firdevs Ulus
Nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization
Organisers: Masoud Ahookhosh, Behzad Azmi, Susan Ghaderi
Optimal and stochastic optimal control
Organiser: Gerhard Wilhelm Weber
Optimization for machine learning
Organisers: Ahmet Alacaoglu, Alp Yurtsever
Optimization, learning, and games
Organisers: Georgios Piliouras, Antonios Varvitsiotis
Riemannian optimization
Organiser: Panos Parpas
Sparsity guarantee and cardinality-constrained (MI)NLPs
Organisers: Immanuel Bomze, Michel De Lara, E. Alper Yildirim
Systematic and computer-aided analyses of optimization algorithms
Organisers: Pontus Giselsson, Adrien Taylor, Manu Upadhyaya
Variational analysis: theory and algorithms
Organisers: Francisco Javier Aragón Artacho, Fernando García Castaño
Zeroth and first-order optimization methods
Organisers: Andrea Cristofari, Cesare Molinari, Francesco Rinaldi, Silvia Villa
Schedule
Provisional schedule - more information coming soon
Winchester excursion
Welcome drinks and registration for EUROPT 2025
Further details on today's events can be found in the social program
Registration
Plenary talk 1
Coffee break
Parallel sessions
Lunch
Parallel sessions
Coffee break
Parallel sessions
Plenary talk 2
Coffee break
Parallel sessions
Lunch
Parallel sessions
Coffee break
Plenary talk 3: EUROPT Lecture
Conference dinner
Plenary talk 4
Coffee break
Parallel sessions
Lunch
Parallel sessions
Coffee break
Parallel sessions
Scientific committee
- Selin Ahipasaoglu (co-chair), University of Southampton
- Giancarlo Bigi (co-chair), University of Pisa
- Alain Zemkoho (co-chair) University of Southampton
- Masoud Ahookhosh, University of Antwerp
- Paula Amaral, NOVA University Lisbon
- Miguel Anjos, University of Edinburgh
- Francisco Aragon-Artacho, University of Alicante
- Stefania Bellavia, University of Florence
- Immanuel Bomze, University of Vienna
- Sonia Cafieri, University of Toulouse
- Emilio Carrizosa, University of Seville
- Coralia Cartis, Oxford University
- Stefano Cipolla, University of Southampton
- Gabriele Eichfelder, TU Ilmenau
- Pontus Giselsson, University of Lund
- Laura Palagi, University La Sapienza
- Panos Parpas, Imperial College
- Vuong Phan, University of Southampton
- Francesco Rinaldi, University of Padua
- Oliver Stein, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
- Firdevs Ulus, Bilkent University
- Wilhelm Weber, University of Poznan
- Angelika Wiegele, University of Klagenfurt
- Alper Yildirim, University of Edinburgh
- Alp Yurtsever, University of Umea
- Hongyu Zhang, University of Southampton
Abstract Submission
The submission system is available at https://www.euro-online.org/conf/europt2025/. The conference accepts contributed abstracts and invited abstracts. To submit an invited abstract, a session (invitation) code from the stream organizer is needed.
Important dates
Registration
Important dates |
|
|---|---|
Registration Opening |
March 21, 2025 |
Early registration deadline |
May 5, 2025 |
Final registration deadline |
May 26, 2025 |
Registration is open. You can access the registration page by following this link. Please note, we accept payments through credit/debit cards. The registration fees, inclusive of VAT, are as follows:
| Registration category | Fee |
|---|---|
| Early – Regular | £250 (approx €300) |
| Early – Student, Retired | £150 (approx €180) |
| Early – Accompanying person | £100 (approx €120) |
| Late – Regular | £350 (approx €420) |
| Late – Student, Retired | £200 (approx €240) |
| Late – Accompanying person | £120 (approx €145) |
Early registration deadline: May 5, 2025
Late registration deadline: May 26, 2025
Regular and student/retired registrations include:
- The opportunity to deliver one presentation
- Access to all conference sessions
- Complimentary coffee, refreshments, and lunches during the conference
- A conference dinner on July 1
- Winchester excursion and welcome reception on June 29
Accompanying person registration includes:
- A conference dinner on July 1
- Winchester excursion and welcome reception on June 29
Cancellations and refunds
Notice of cancellation must be sent by email to europt2025@soton.ac.uk. For cancellations received before June 6, 2025, a full refund minus an administration fee of £40 (€50) will be granted. After this date, refunds will be at the discretion of the organizing committee. If you are not able to attend, you are welcome to give your registration to a colleague. Change of name is free of charge. No‐shows will not receive a refund. Please allow up to 4 weeks to receive any refunds.
Force Majeure
Unexpected cancellation of the conference. The organising commitee reserves itself the right to cancel EUROPT2025 without notice or compensation in the event of force majeure cases (for example, but not limited to acts of nature such as fire, earthquake, hurricane, flood, war, or terrorist attacks). In such cases, the organizing committee is freed of all responsibility.
Limitation of liability. In the event of it being impossible to carry out the EUROPT2025 for force majeure cases, so long as this arises from a cause not attributable to the organisers, the organisers shall only be obliged to reimburse the payments received subject to deduction of any costs it has incurred in preparing the event. This liability only extends to the payments made directly to the EUROPT2025 and not to payments made by the attendees to the hotel or airlines.
Conference Venue
The conference will take place in the Centenary Building on Highfield Campus of the University of Southampton
University of Southampton
The conference will take place in the Highfield Campus at the University of Southampton.
Getting here
The Highfield Campus can be reached by bus from the city centre (lines U1 and U2). The closest stops are Jubilee Sports Hall and Future Worlds. Note that Southampton buses have different suffixes when travelling north (e.g. U1A) than when travelling south (e.g. U1C).
Credits: Jon Banfield Photography 
Credits: Jon Banfield Photography 
Credits: Jon Banfield Photography 
Credits: Jon Banfield Photography Travel
By air
Southampton Airport
Southampton International Airport is a few minutes away from the Southampton campuses by bus or taxi (off junction 5 of the M27 motorway). There is a full UK domestic service, as well as flights to mainland Europe and the Channel Islands.
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport lies east of London City and is only 65 miles by road to the University of Southampton. The easiest way to get to Southampton is by road either by car or by National Express coach, who have a direct line from Southampton to all Heathrow terminals, with an average journey time of 90 minutes.
London Gatwick Airport
London Gatwick Airport lies directly south of London City, around 80 miles from Southampton. There is a train station in the south terminal, with connections to London, and you can travel to Southampton Central Station with 1 change.
By rail
Fast trains from London and Bournemouth/Weymouth stop at Winchester, Southampton Central and Southampton Airport Parkway. Trains from Portsmouth and Bristol/South Wales stop at Southampton Central. Slow trains from London and Bournemouth/Weymouth also stop at Swaythling Station.
By bus or coach
National Express provides regular services from central London, Heathrow, Birmingham, Bournemouth and the North. Southampton coach station is at Western Esplanade, in the city centre. Our own Uni-link buses connect the University’s Southampton campuses with the city centre and both train stations – Southampton Central and Southampton Airport Parkway.
By car
Southampton is just 75 miles (120km) from London and 21 miles (35km) from the Channel ports. The M3 and M27 motorways, as well the A34 road provide fast, direct access while the A36 road is the main route to the West Country, Bristol and Wales.
From the M3 motorway– exit at junction 14, following signs for Southampton (A33 road). Follow the A33 into Bassett Avenue and follow the map/signs to University of Southampton Highfield campus. From the M27 motorway (west or east) – leave the M27 at junction 5 (Southampton Airport) and follow the map/signs to the University of Southampton Highfield campus.
Accommodation
Elizabeth House Hotel
Elizabeth House Hotel is conveniently located in the thriving City of Southampton less than a mile from the City Centre, The West Quay Shopping Centre, IKEA, University of Southampton, The Mayflower Theatre, The Law Courts and St. Mary’s Football Stadium with all residents benefitting from free car parking.
Address: 42-44 The Avenue, Southampton, SO17 1XP
7 min
15 min
29 min
Booking information
Contact directly via email or phone for a discount.
Leonardo Hotel Southampton
Each room comes equipped with free Wi-Fi, a flat-screen TV, air-conditioning and tea and coffee-making facilities, as well as an ensuite bathroom with complimentary toiletries. There is also a spacious, well-lit workspace, and the rooms can accommodate three adults or two adults with two children under the age of twelve.
Address: 1 Charlotte Place, Southampton, SO14 0TB
9 min
21 min
43 min
Booking information
Book online using code LHUNIS270625 to secure the following rates per night for a single occupancy room (breakfast included).
28 - 29 June
£129
29 June - 3 July
£109 / night
- Card details required at booking to guarantee reservation
- Free cancellation up to 7 days prior to arrival
- Discount rate expires 29 May 2025
Novotel
In Southampton’s centre, this Novotel looks over the port and is just 3 minutes from the Central Rail Station. It has a fitness centre and modern rooms. The spacious rooms at Novotel Southampton feature a private bathroom and a large work area. Rooms also include a safe, a hairdryer, and tea/coffee facilities. Parking at the hotel is charged at £10 per night.
Address: 1 West Quay Rd, Southampton, SO15 1RA
15 min
32 min
54 min
Booking information
Contact directly via email to H1073@accor.com with the subject line “UNIVER0625” to secure the following rates per night (breakfast included).
Single-occupancy
£145
Double-occupancy
£156
- Free cancellation up to 7 days prior to arrival, late cancellations will be charged the full amount
- Discount rate expires 29 May 2025
Enquiry email must include the following:
- Primary guest's name
- Arrival date
- Check-out date
- Number of adult guests
- Payment card details
Card details are required to guarantee reservation and will automatically be sent as a secure encrypted email. If you do not wish to include your card details in the email, please provide a contact telephone number instead.
Ibis Southampton Centre
All rooms boast free Wi-Fi and a dedicated workspace, so you can catch up on emails or work remotely in comfort. Tea and coffee-making facilities and TVs with Freeview ensure you feel at home from the moment you arrive.
Address: 9 West Quay Road, Southampton, SO15 1RA
15 min
23 min
51 min
Booking information
Call directly to enquire
Leonardo Royal Hotel Southampton Grand Harbour
Situated on Southampton Waterfront, near the Ocean Cruise Terminal, the Leonardo Royal Hotel Southampton Grand Harbour offers both views to the sea and city, with modern, spacious rooms, suitable for business, leisure, and everything in between. The hotel has a stunning glass atrium and impressive spa, and each room includes free Wi-Fi, a flat-screen TV, and a hairdryer. It houses the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse and its Royal Bar serves up plenty of options to satisfy a wide range of need or craving.
Address: West Quay Road, Southampton, SO15 1AG
16 min
34 min
60 min
Booking information
- Card details required at booking to guarantee reservation
- Cancellation possible up to 7 days prior to arrival
Visa and ETA
Visa and Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) information
Even if you have travelled to the UK recently, all attendees are recommended to check if a visa is needed to enter the UK. Please see this online form.
Attendees are also reminded that in some cases visas may be required if you are transiting through a particular country. Please check your flight schedule carefully and consult the relevant governmental website for visa information.
By April 2025, all visitors who do not need a visa will need an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) to travel to or transit through the UK. Please see this information sheet from Visit Britain.
The UK GOV website has more information on ETA requirements.
Organizing Committee
The local organizing committee members are from School of Mathematical Sciences of the University of Southampton
EUROPT 2025 Summer School
June 27-29, University of Southampton, UK
June 27, Daniel Kuhn
Distributionally Robust Optimization
Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) studies decision problems under uncertainty where the probability distribution governing the uncertain problem parameters is itself uncertain. A key component of any DRO model is its ambiguity set, that is, a family of probability distributions consistent with any available structural or statistical information. DRO seeks decisions that perform best under the worst distribution in the ambiguity set. This worst case criterion is supported by findings in psychology and neuroscience, which indicate that many decision-makers have a low tolerance for distributional ambiguity. DRO is rooted in statistics, operations research and control theory, and recent research has uncovered its deep connections to regularization techniques and adversarial training in machine learning. This course will present the key findings of the field in a unified and self-contained manner.
Schedule
June 28, Anthony Man-Cho So
Error Bounds in Optimization
Many contemporary applications in science and engineering give rise to optimization problems that have specific structures, and it is often observed numerically that various iterative methods for solving these structured problems enjoy fast convergence rates. Can we theoretically show that these methods are able to exploit problem structures to achieve fast convergence? To address this question, a powerful approach is to examine the problem structure through the lens of error bounds or the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz (KL) inequality. Roughly speaking, an error bound provides an estimate of the distance to the solution set of a problem, while the KL inequality provides an estimate of the growth of the objective function of a problem. These estimates yield information on how the iterates generated by different methods progress, thereby allowing one to study the convergence behavior of these methods. In this course, we first introduce the error bound-based and KL inequality-based frameworks for convergence rate analysis of iterative methods. Then, we showcase a number of application scenarios of these frameworks. The scenarios are drawn from applications in computational economics, machine learning, signal processing, and statistics, so as to demonstrate the wide applicability of the said frameworks. Lastly, we discuss the interplay between error bounds and the KL inequality, which offers further insights into how these two tools capture the structure of an optimization problem.
Schedule
June 29, Winchester Excursion
Details on the Winchester excursion can be found in the social program.
Social Program
Social events throughout the conference and summer school
June 29, Winchester Excursion
Following the summer school, we will set off for an excursion to the nearby historical city of Winchester. Join us for a walking tour of the city's top sights (weather permitting), including a look inside Winchester Cathedral. Below is a map of the route, including some of the sights we will see.
Walking Tour Sights
Winchester City Mill
Wolvesey Castle
Winchester Cathedral
Jane Austen's House
Winchester Museum
The Great Hall
Download tour map
Getting to Winchester
Getting to Winchester from Southampton is straight forward, with direct trains leaving regularly. Train tickets can be purchased from South Western Railway or trainline. To meet us there, follow the directions in Option 2 below. Alternatively, you can join the hiking group which will get off the train early and follow the river into Winchester. See further details in Option 1 below.
Option 1 - Hike to Winchester
- Shawford Station
- St Catherine's Hill
Option 1 is to join the hiking group who will get off the train early, at Shawford Station, and take a scenic hike along the River Itchen, finishing at the top of St. Catherine's Hill.
Trains to Shawford can be taken from either Southampton Central or Southampton Airport Parkway. We recommend purchasing a return ticket to Winchester to allow you to take the train directly back to Southampton after the excursion.
Train Timetable*
Option 2 - Train to Winchester
Option 2 is to leave later and take the train directly to Winchester and meet up with the tour group at Winchester Station. Trains can be caught from either Southampton Central or Southampton Airport Parkway.
Train Timetable*
*Please note that precise timings might change, so check in here regularly to ensure you have up-to-date details.
June 29, Welcome and Registration for EUROPT 2025
Building 100
Highfield Campus
University of Southampton
SO17 1BJ
18:00 - 19:30
July 1, Conference Dinner
Southampton Harbour Hotel
5 Maritime Walk
Ocean Village
Southampton
SO14 3QT
19:00 - 21:00
Sponsors
Main Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
If you would like to sponsor the conference or the summer school, please contact Co-Chairs at europt2025@soton.ac.uk
Sponsors
Main Sponsors
Silver Sponsors