Faculties / Central Institutes
The 29th Workshop on Future Research in Combinatorial Optimization will take place from August 10th to August 14th, 2026, at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), Germany.
FRICO is directed at PhD students from the following research areas:
Every participant will be assigned a slot; either for a 20-minute presentation (excluding 5 minutes for setup and questions), or a 5-minute elevator pitch talk. It is especially encouraged to present ongoing research and open problems.
FRICO 2026 does not have a conference fee. This is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors.
During the 'industry session' on (TBA) the sponsors will inform us about practical application of combinatorial optimization in their companies.
To get a general impression of FRICO, visit the webpage of FRICO 2025, which took place in Aachen, or have a look at the history of FRICO. If you have any questions, please contact any of the organizers or write an email to frico26@math.tu-berlin.de.
TBA
FRICO 2026 is hosted by the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB). Details TBA
Campus TUB (Click to view full PDF)
We recommend the following hotels:
You can also look at: Booking.com and airbnb
Registration is now officially open for the FRICO 2026 (Future Research in Combinatorial Optimization) workshop.
Please register by June 29th, 2026 , using the following google form.
If you prefer not to use Google Forms, you may register by emailing frico26@math.tu-berlin.de with the following information:
Ulrich Pferschy described the origin of the FRICO in the program booklet of the 10th FRICO as follows:
" … However, some people who are taking part in this relaxed exchange of ideas for the first time may ask themselves how such an unstructured event came about. To prevent the formation of false legends, which are sometimes already spread in an hour with wine, I would like to briefly present the official version of the FRICO creation. In the autumn of 1996, a two-week summer school on the approximation of combinatorial optimization problems took place in Udine (this was the summer school to which the great Papadimitriou had mistakenly arrived a year too early). On the free weekend contained therein, it was obvious to undertake an excursion into the surrounding wine country. At least this was the firm conviction of the two Graz participants, Rüdiger Rudolf and myself. Since excursions of this kind are only half as nice for two (if they are men), we successfully tried to win the apparently like-minded participants Dagmar Handke (Konstanz) and Katja Wolf (Cologne) as companions. The beautiful excursion ended in a trattoria in Cividale with a special local dish, which can best be described as a mixture of potatoes, onions, bacon, and cheese; nothing for a weak stomach. The Frico cheese, a Friulian specialty, gives the dish its name. In a cheerful circle, Katja invited all of us to a Frico dinner in Cologne without knowing what she was starting. However, it was to take over a year before this invitation could be made more concrete. Now the way from Graz to Cologne is quite long, and as optimizers, we tried to combine the pleasant with the useful. Without further ado, we offered to combine the private visit with a lecture at the then ZPR Cologne. And so that it didn′t look as if the people of Cologne can only listen and have nothing to say themselves, Katja immediately obliged a few "locals" to give further lectures. Thus a one-day workshop had developed in the twinkling of an eye. Although the organizer said: "We can′t call it FRICO", I managed to find the acronym that is known today. The first FRICO Workshop in 1997 was a great success (in contrast to the Frico dinner in the evening, which was canceled from the program in the following years). This moved Professor Schrader to donate a barrel of Kölsch and to "threaten" to continue organizing this event format on his own if we did not. Of course, we couldn′t afford to let that happen, and so the second FRICO was decided in Graz in 1998. The rest is history."