5th International Workshop on Reaction Systems

Important dates

• Abstract submission: March 31, 2026

• Workshop: TBA

• Main conference UCNC 2026: June 22-26, 2026

About the workshop

The 6th edition of the Reaction Systems Workshop takes place at the University of Trieste, Italy on June 2N, 2026. The workshop is planned as an on-site/in-person full day event. It is co-located with the 23rd International Conference on Unconventional Computing and Natural Computing UCNC 2026, which features a broad and stimulating scientific program, including topics such as self-organizing robot swarms, molecular self-assembly, and cellular automata.  

Since their introduction nearly 20 years ago, reaction systems have evolved into a broad inter-disciplinary research area, driven by both biological motivations as well as the need to understand interactive computation. Research in this field is extensive and diverse, spanning theoretical foundations, applications and software tools. It encompasses various types of reaction systems, their mathematical properties, and their connections to other fields.  In response to the growing interest, a series of workshops and schools on reaction systems has been established to present state-of-the-art developments, exchanging research ideas, foster new collaborations, and strengthen existing ones.

Previous editions of the workshop: 

• Fifth edition: Nice, France, September 2025

• Fourth edition: Pisa, Italy, September 2024.

• Third edition: Jacksonville, Florida, USA, March 2023. 

• Second edition: Torun, Poland, June 2019. 

• First edition: Milano, Italy, June 2018. 

Main organizers of the 2026 edition: Luca Manzoni (University of Trieste, Italy) and Ion Petre (University of Turku, Finland)

Invited speakers

TBA

Program

• TBA

Call for contributed talks

We welcome talks on all aspects of reaction systems, including, but not limited to: 

• new variants of reaction systems; 

• mathematical and computational properties of reaction systems; 

• biological aspects of reaction systems;

• relationships to other areas;

• software tools;

• applications and case-studies. 

Talks may present novel, unpublished research results as well as research published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences since 2024. To propose a talk, send an email to ion.petre@utu.fi with an extended abstract (up to 2 pages). If the proposal is based on an already published article, include the bibliographical reference in the proposal. 

 The workshop will not publish a proceedings volume. A special issue based on the workshop is planned to be organized in Natural Computing. A separate call for novel, unpublished research will be issued, and submissions will undergo a separate peer-review process.

Submission deadline: March 31, 2026.

Organizers

• Paolo Bottoni, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

• Moreno Falaschi, University of Siena, Italy

• Enrico Formentti, University of Nice, France

• Daniela Genova, University of North Florida, USA

• Roberta Gori, University of Pisa, Italy

• Jetty Kleijn, University of Leiden, the Netherlands

• Maciej Koutny, Newcastle University, UK

• Luca Manzoni, University of Trieste, Italy

• Wojtek Penczek, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

• Ion Petre, University of Turku, Finland and National Institute of R&D for Biological Sciences, Romania (chair) 

• Grzegorz Rozenberg, University of Leiden, the Netherlands