The 32nd International Computing and Combinatorics Conference (COCOON 2026) will be held in Singapore from 23 to 25 July 2026. More information can be found at the conference website: https://event.ntu.edu.sg/cocoon2026.

Original research papers in the areas of algorithms, theory of computation, computational complexity, and combinatorics related to computing are solicited. Submissions presenting experimental or applied work are also welcome, provided that they make a clear algorithmic contribution and offer insights of interest to the theory and algorithms community. Special consideration will be given to research that is motivated by real-world problems. Such submissions are expected to include rigorous justification, careful evaluation, or convincing evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

Important Dates

Paper submission: 27 February 2026
Notification: 6 May 2026
Camera-ready: 29 May 2026
Conference: 23-25 July 2026

All deadlines are at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12).

Invited Speakers

Yuichi Yoshida, National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Seth Pettie, University of Michigan, USA

Topics of Interest

The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

Algorithms and Data Structures
Algorithmic Game Theory and Mechanism Design
Approximation Algorithms and Online Algorithms
Automata, Languages, Logic, and Computability
Combinatorics Related to Algorithms and Complexity
Complexity Theory
Computational Learning Theory and Knowledge Discovery
Cryptography, Reliability and Security
Database Theory
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Computational Algebra, Geometry, and Number Theory
Exact and Parameterized Algorithms
Graph Drawing and Information Visualization
Graph Theory, Communication Networks
Optimization
Parallel and Distributed Computing
Quantum Computing

Paper Submission

Each submission should contain a clear and scholarly exposition of ideas, techniques, and results, including the motivation and a careful comparison with related work. Papers will be evaluated on the basis of originality, technical depth, correctness, significance, and clarity of presentation.

Each submission is limited to twelve (12) single-column pages in Springer LNCS format; see LNCS author guidelines at http://www.springer.com/la/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines.

The page limit includes figures and references but excludes an optional appendix. Proofs omitted due to space constraints must be placed in the appendix (after references, in the same file), which may be read by the program committee members at their discretion. Appendices of accepted papers will not be published in the proceedings.

The conference employs a lightweight double-blind reviewing process. Submissions must not reveal the identity of the authors in any way. Authors are expected to follow standard double-blind practices commonly used in theory conferences. Nothing should be done in the name of anonymity that weakens the submission or hinders the reviewing process; in particular, references must not be omitted or anonymized. Code and data may be provided via anonymous download links or an anonymized GitHub repository.

All submissions must be made electronically through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=cocoon2026.

The submission server will open approximately one month before the submission deadline.

Proceedings

There must be one full registration associated with every accepted paper, regardless of whether the presenter qualifies for a discounted registration.

Accepted papers must be presented in-person in order to appear in the proceedings, which will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series, as in the previous COCOON conferences: https://link.springer.com/conference/cocoon.

Awards

Awards will be given for the Best Paper and Best Student Paper. To be eligible for the Best Student Paper Award, all authors must be full-time students at the time of submission. Authors should indicate eligibility in the final line of the abstract. The programme committee reserves the right to withhold these awards or to split them among multiple recipients.

Programme Committee Co-chairs

Yi Li, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Frank Stephan, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Xiaoming Sun, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Programme Committee

https://event.ntu.edu.sg/cocoon2026/pages/committees