Foundations of Genetic Algorithms

This article is about the computer science conference with the acronym FOGA. For the airport with that ICAO code, see FOGA.

Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA) is a biennial peer-reviewed research conference focusing on the theoretical principles underlying genetic algorithms, other evolutionary algorithms and related heuristics. It is organized by the ACM SIGEVO, the ACM special interest group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Its relevance to the computer science research community has been reflected in an A-rating in the CORE computer science conference assessment system.

Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA)
Status	Active
Genre	Conference
Frequency	Biennial
Years active	35
Inaugurated	1990 (1990)
Most recent	2025
Next event	2027
Area	International
Activity	Evolutionary computation Theoretical computer science
Sponsor	Association for Computing Machinery SIGEVO

History

The Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA)^[1] conference originated as a workshop in 1990^[2] in order to create an opportunity for researchers on genetic algorithms and related areas of evolutionary computation to focus on the theoretical principles underlying their field. From the start its multi-day duration made it comparable to conferences in the field, and since 2015 its proceedings have used conference rather than workshop in their titles.

In 2005 ACM SIGEVO the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation was formed^[3] and every FOGA conference since then has been supported by SIGEVO. The table below shows FOGA conferences by year, location, websites (where available) and publisher of proceedings. A citation follows the reference to the publisher giving the full details of each FOGA proceedings.

Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA) conferences

Year[4]	Location[5]	Website[6]	Publisher[7]
1990	Bloomington	No	Morgan Kaufmann[2]
1992	Vail	No	Morgan Kaufmann[8]
1994	Estes Park	No	Morgan Kaufmann[9]
1996	San Diego	No	Morgan Kaufmann[10]
1998	Amsterdam	No	Morgan Kaufmann[11]
2000	Charlottesville	No	Morgan Kaufmann[12]
2002	Torremolinos	No	Morgan Kaufmann[13]
2005	Aizuwakamatsu	No	Springer[14]
2007	Mexico City	Yes[15]	Springer[16]
2009	Orlando	Yes[17]	ACM[18]
2011	Schwarzenberg	Yes[19]	ACM[20]
2013	Adelaide	Yes[21]	ACM[22]
2015	Aberystwyth	No	ACM[23]
2017	Copenhagen	No	ACM[24]
2019	Potsdam	No	ACM[25]
2021	Dornbirn[26]	No	ACM[27]
2023	Potsdam	Yes[28]	ACM[29]
2025	Leiden	Yes[30]	ACM[31]

Format

FOGA is a single-track three or more-day conference focusing on the theory underlying evolutionary algorithms and related heuristics. (See the conference proceedings or websites for the actual duration of each conference.)

Keynote speakers

Keynote speakers are invited to give presentations in addition to the main program. Keynote speakers at recent conferences are gven in the table below.

Keynote speakers at FOGA conferences

Year	Keynote speakers
2021[32]	Adi Livnat & Tim Roughgarden
2023[33]	Carola Doerr & José A. Lozano
2025[30]	Joshua D. Knowles, Vedran Dunjko & Tobias Glasmachers

Poster sessions

Papers accepted at recent conferences have been presented as digital or print posters in poster sessions at the conference,^[34] before being published in written form in the conference proceedings.

Awards

Since 2019 a Best Paper Award has been presented at each FOGA conference.^[35]

Relevance

FOGA is comparable in its multi-day duration to other conferences on evolutionary computation such as CEC, GECCO and PPSN. The main difference is that FOGA focuses on the theoretical basis of evolutionary computation and related subjects. While the above conferences devote some time to theory they also cover a wide range of other topics including competitions and applications.^[36][37][38] This focus on theoretical computer science was reflected in the CORE^[39] computer science conference assessment exercise,^[40] where FOGA was given an A-ranking in the 2023 assessment.^[41] GECCO^[42] and PPSN^[43] also obtained A-rankings, but many other conferences in the field of evolutionary computation obtained lower rankings. This suggests that FOGA is a relevant conference in its field, comparable with others including the much larger CEC or GECCO.