April 10–12, The 2026 International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA 2026), hosted by SUES, was successfully convened in Songjiang, Shanghai. Nearly 300 experts in the field of optimization from China and abroad gathered for this prestigious event. Lou Yongqi, President of SUES, delivered a video address at the opening ceremony. The ceremony was chaired by Wang Guoqiang, Dean of School of Mathematics, Physics and Statistics.
In his address, President Lou Yongqi extended a warm welcome to experts and scholars from around the world. He emphasized that optimization technology lies at the heart of science and engineering, serving as a system engineering endeavor that integrates multiple disciplines. President Lou Yongqi noted that SUES is fully committed to building itself into a “world-class application-innovation university with distinctive industry characteristics”. The university has proposed a talent development model driven by the 3-wings integration of “Engineering × Management × Design”, aimed at turning innovation into real-world applications, industrial solutions, and social impact. He stressed that through in-depth global dialogue and cross-disciplinary collaboration, cutting-edge theoretical breakthroughs and innovative solutions can be advanced, enabling optimization technology to deeply empower future industries under the framework of the 15th Five-Year Plan and promoting resonance between scientific wisdom and societal needs.
The conference featured seven invited talks focusing on optimization techniques and applications, covering frontier topics such as stability in multi-agent optimization, optimal control, transportation problems with random demand, sustainability economics, learning-based algorithms for combinatorial optimization, efficient solutions for linear and convex quadratic programming, and differential stochastic variational inequalities. A total of 25 parallel sessions and eight keynote presentations were organized, facilitating in-depth exchanges on subjects including polynomial optimization, modern optimization theory, bi-level optimization, integer programming, manifold optimization, stochastic optimization, nonsmooth nonconvex optimization, matrix optimization, Riemannian optimization, dynamical systems, and optimization algorithms. More than 100 experts and scholars from over ten countries and regions, including China, the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, Norway, and Israel, presented their research.
Faculty and students from SUES demonstrated solid research strength and dynamic academic engagement throughout the conference, delivering a total of nine presentations. Their talks covered optimization theory, algorithm design, intelligent decision-making, and forward-looking applications in engineering and industry. These contributions showcased a series of phased breakthroughs achieved by the university in the field of optimization and highlighted the academic influence of SUES’ high-level research teams, which are built upon interdisciplinary integration of statistics, operations research, and other related fields.
