Jekyll2026-04-12T16:19:18+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/feed.xmlPACE ChallengeParameterized Algorithms and Computational ExperimentsPACE ChallengePACE 2026: Track details and instances2026-01-23T00:00:00+00:002026-01-23T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2026/01/23/PACE-2026-UpdatesDear all, the detailed specification of all tracks is now online. The exact and heuristic tracks are very similar to the previous iterations. The new “lower-bound” track is a blend between both: we ask for submissions of solvers that guarantee a prescribed solution quality as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, we are behind schedule with the generation of public instances. We expect to publish the instances in February and apologise for the delay.

In the meantime, we recommend using the STRIDE tool which already contains several thousand instances of varying difficulty. Some of these instances are constructed using tools similar to the public instances (although possibly with different parameters). We plan to add further instances to STRIDE over time and also invite the community to send interesting instances to Manuel. The STRIDE database already contains many (often optimal) solution scores, and additional solutions are added while you test your solver.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Results are out!2025-08-08T00:00:00+00:002025-08-08T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/08/08/PACE-2025-resultsWe are happy to announce the results of PACE 2025. Congratulations to the winners and all the participants! You can now find all private instances on Github. Feel free to contact us if you like to provide or update your team name. More information will follow very soon!

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Solver Description Deadline and current status2025-06-21T00:00:00+00:002025-06-21T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/06/21/PACE-2025-Description-Deadline-and-moreDear all, as the solver description deadline is approaching, we would like to give an update on the current state. We have added a bunch of test instances to the instances repository. Note that these instances are not the private instances and hence not used for scoring. However, exact solvers producing suboptimal or invalid solution on any instance (and hence on any of these test instances) will be disqualified. Half of the instances are taken from the Stride dataset (thanks to Manuel Penschuck for this project!) while the other half are small and random graphs. We refer to the readme file in the repository for further information. Note that we have added two late submissions to the list of participating solvers. We have carefully verified that the codebases of those solvers have not been modified after the deadline in order to ensure fairness.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Begin of the Evaluation Phase2025-06-14T00:00:00+00:002025-06-14T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/06/14/PACE-2025-Beginn-EvaluationDear all, the evaluation phase has just started. Find a list of all participating solvers here. Please contact us if you spot errors.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Submission Deadline is Approching (and a small change to the docker environment)2025-06-13T00:00:00+00:002025-06-13T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/06/13/PACE-2025-Deadline-and-DockerDear all, the solver submission deadline is approaching. We thank all participants for their participation! We fixed a small issue within the provided docker environment: the evaluation script handed the instance to the solver via a path descriptor as an argument, not via stdin. We have changed the evaluation script such that the input is provided via stdin, being consistent with optil.io and the description on this webpage. If you have modified your code to take the instance path as an argument, feel free to change it or leave it as it is; just make sure to include a short notice in your installation guide if your solver expects the input not to be provided via stdin. Sorry for the inconvenience!

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Docker Evaluation Environment2025-06-05T00:00:00+00:002025-06-05T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/06/05/PACE-2025-dockerWe provide a docker stack on Github containing the evaluation environment as it will be used for the final evaluation. For further information click here.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Submission Guideline2025-05-22T00:00:00+00:002025-05-22T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/05/22/PACE-2025-submissionWe have added information on the submission guideline. Find more information here. Furthermore we have slightly updated the recently announced scoring system for the heuristic tracks in order to compute a fairer score for instances where the optimal solution size is significantly smaller than the number of vertices. Find more information here.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Scoring system2025-05-20T00:00:00+00:002025-05-20T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/05/20/PACE-2025-scoringWe have added information on this years scoring system. Find more information here.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Optil is now live!2025-05-15T00:00:00+00:002025-05-15T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/05/15/PACE-2025-Optil-Is-LiveThe preliminary leaderboard on optil is now live. Find more information here and directly on optil.

]]>PACE ChallengePACE 2025: Timeline Update and FAQ2025-05-12T00:00:00+00:002025-05-12T00:00:00+00:00https://pacechallenge.org/2025/05/12/PACE-2025-Schedule-UpdateWe have updated the timeline. The deadline for the solvers is Friday, 13.06.2025, 23:59 AOE. Recall this years procedure to ensure the correctness of exact solvers. We have also added a small FAQ. We expect the preliminary leaderboard on optil to go live within the next few days. Happy Coding!

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