During 27-30 April, 2026, researchers from across Europe and beyond gathered in Prague for “NextGen Synergy: Control Theory & Machine Learning”, the inaugural conference of COST Action CA24136 – InterCoML. Hosted by the Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze, the meeting set out to do exactly what the Action stands for: Bring control theory and machine learning into a productive and sustained dialogue.
The conference brought together roughly 60 participants from 20 countries, spanning the full range of disciplines that the Action is designed to connect: Mathematical analysis, numerical mathematics, control engineering, computer science, and machine learning. It was particularly encouraging to see a strong presence of early-career researchers alongside senior colleagues, with PhD students and postdocs contributing actively to the poster sessions and panel discussions.
Members of all five Working Groups were represented, and many participants met their collaborators in person for the first time. The atmosphere across coffee breaks, the conference dinner, and the evening exchanges in central Prague was unmistakably the kind of cross-community energy that COST Actions are meant to generate. The four-day program was built around eight keynote talks, contributed presentations, two poster sessions, and panel discussions — deliberately structured to leave room for conversation as well as content.
Why it matters
Control theory and machine learning have long developed in parallel, occasionally in competition, and only recently in genuine cooperation. InterCoML was created to accelerate that cooperation, and the Prague conference was its first community-wide rendezvous. The discussions made it clear that the converging questions — stability, generalization, safety, sample efficiency, and control of high-dimensional learned systems — are best addressed by teams that speak both languages. Concrete next steps emerging from the meeting include new Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs), joint Working Group activities, and follow-up workshops within the Action’s five WGs. Warm thanks to the Organizers, the International Program Committee, and the Action’s leadership for putting together an event that was, on every level, collaborative by design.
