I had the pleasure to participate to another Dagstuhl Seminar on Theory and Practice of SAT and Combinatorial Solving this week. Dagstuhl is a remote castle in Germany, a computer research centre, which organises 5-days research seminars. These are always busy weeks of research and intense discussions! We are particularly cherished (every day, cake at 4pm) but these weeks are essential for the long-term functioning of research (as are the long evenings after the meal served at 6pm). It is always an opportunity to maintain links with colleagues/friends, and to focus 100% on what you can do to improve your research, discover new areas, and imagine new solutions for yours. It’s a unique moment every time. INRIA is one of the main contributors to the Dagtuhl centre. It is important to maintain such centres!

This year the seminar focused on more theoretical problems than usual and the week was particularly rich in presentations on applications/problems related to SAT solvers (e.g. Proof Logging/Searcg, QBF Solving, Constraint Programming, Satisfiability Modulo Theory, Mixed Integer Programming, First Order Solvers, Automated Planning). There were very few (if any) presentations on how to design efficient solvers in practice and what progress has been made in recent years in terms of performance. But what a week!
Just for fun, some of my previous participations in Dagstuhl (find Charly)
2019

2017

2015

2014

2009
