Last week, MagIC researchers made a significant impact at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) held in Lisbon, from July 15th to 19th, 2023. The conference attracted approximately 900 participants, with about two-thirds attending in person and the remaining one-third participating online, adopting a hybrid format to accommodate the global audience.

Diverse perspectives converged as researchers from around 50 different nationalities came together, reflecting the conference's international appeal. Leonardo Vanneschi, the Local Chair of GECCO 2023, co-led the organization, while Mauro Castelli and Illya Bakurov played vital roles as members of the organizing committee. Complementing this effort, students from NOVA IMS, including Berfin Sakallioglu, Camila Andrea Sarmiento Betancourt, Davide Farinati, Diogo Rasteiro, Inês Magessi, Liah Rosenfeld, and Maria Gonçalves, excelled as student volunteers, leaving a positive impact.

MagIC researchers presented papers that covered various intriguing topics, showcasing the breadth and depth of research being conducted at the research center:

• "An Investigation of Geometric GP Semantics with Linear Scaling" by G. Nadizar, F. Garrow, B. Sakallioglu, L. Canonne, S. Silva, L. Vanneschi.
• "A Comparison of Structural Complexity Metrics for Explainable Genetic Programming" by K. Brotto Rebuli, M. Giacobini, S. Silva, L. Vanneschi.
• "Evolutionary Algorithms for Segment Optimisation in Vector GP" by P. Fleck, S. Winkler, M. Kommenda, S. Silva, L. Vanneschi, M. Affenzeller.

In light of GECCO's historical significance, Leonardo Vanneschi expressed his appreciation for the conference, stating, "In the last 30 years, GECCO has represented an annual point of reference for the international scientific community in the area of Evolutionary Computation. The international prestige of GECCO was also basilar for extending and giving visibility and importance to the field of Evolutionary Computation inside the larger areas of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science." He highlighted the importance of GECCO for NOVA IMS, acknowledging it as a recognition of the research center's international impact and quality.

The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) has been a prestigious event since 1999, presenting the latest high-quality results in genetic and evolutionary computation. The conference covers a wide range of topics, making it an annual point of reference for the international scientific community in the field of Evolutionary Computation, consistently publishing important contributions and foundational work that have shaped the field.

With GECCO 2024 already on the horizon, scheduled from July 14th to 18th, 2024, in Melbourne (Australia), MagIC researchers continue to look forward to showcasing their groundbreaking research and further contributing to the field of Evolutionary Computation.

GECCO is funded by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO).