INESC-ID

Tag: Award

  • INESC-ID researchers receive ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at ICSE 2025

    INESC-ID researchers receive ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at ICSE 2025

    João F. Ferreira, INESC-ID researcher and professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (DEI) at Instituto Superior Técnico, and Nuno Saavedra, PhD student and INESC-ID researcher, have received the prestigious ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2025—the premier global event in software engineering.

    The award-winning paper, titled “Rango: Adaptive Retrieval-Augmented Proving for Automated Software Verification,” presents a novel approach to proof synthesis using machine learning and large language models (LLMs), enhanced by retrieval augmentation techniques. Rango introduces a dynamic, adaptive system that identifies and integrates relevant proofs and premises at each stage of the software verification process. This allows the tool to tailor its reasoning to both the specific project and the evolving state of the proof itself.

    The effectiveness of Rango was demonstrated using a newly curated dataset, CoqStoq, which contains more than 2,200 open-source Coq projects. The tool successfully synthesized proofs for 32% of theorems, marking a 29% improvement over previous state-of-the-art systems—an impressive leap forward that could help make formal software verification more accessible and practical for developers.

    This significant achievement is the result of a strong international collaboration with the research including researchers from the University of California San Diego, the University of Massachusetts and Pedro Carrott, a former MSc student at Técnico, supervised by João F. Ferreira and presently at Imperial College London.

    The ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award is reserved for papers of exceptional quality presented at ICSE, and this recognition reflects both the scientific impact and collaborative excellence behind the work.

  • Arlindo Oliveira receives the Galp and Academy of Engineering Career Award

    Arlindo Oliveira receives the Galp and Academy of Engineering Career Award

    More than just “personal recognition,” the Career Award from Galp and the Academy of Engineering, presented to Arlindo Oliveira, is a “tribute” to the institutions where he has worked, said the INESC-ID researcher.

    The President of INESC and Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico spoke at the award ceremony, which took place on February 25 at Galp’s headquarters in Lisbon. The selection of Arlindo Oliveira as the award recipient was based on the “social and economic relevance of his career” as well as the “excellence of his contributions to engineering.”

    During the ceremony, the researcher from the Information and Decision Support Systems scientific area took the opportunity to share insights on ongoing discussions in AI, emphasizing that “the idea of mechanizing reasoning is not new.” He highlighted that “Alan Turing had already answered everything in 1950—he just didn’t have a computer.” He also reinforced the idea that “there is nothing in intelligence that is not computable.”

    In a recorded message, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of Portugal, praised the awardee’s “outstanding scientific career at both national and international levels” and recognized him as “a pioneer in the field of AI in our country.”

    The jury for the Career Award included Eduardo Marçal Grilo, João Paulo Oliveira, and Maria da Graça Carvalho, representing the Academy of Engineering, as well as Georgios Papadimitriou, Ana Casaca, and Manuel Andrade from Galp. The jury was chaired by Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo, President of the Academy of Engineering.

    Images | © 2025 Galp

    *Adapted from the original published by Instituto Superior Técnico