Leader of the group Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization (PNA1): Monique Laurent.

The motivation for the research of the group Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization comes from society. Real-world problems often ask for searching for an optimum or desirable solution among an infinite, or even finite but astronomically large, number of candidates.

Such problems arise for instance in production and transportation planning, routing, scheduling and timetabling, computational biology, and network economics. Motivated by this algorithmic challenge, the group investigates and develops methods from mathematics (algebra, geometry, graph theory, mathematical logic, topology), mathematical optimization (combinatorial, linear, integer, and semidefinite optimization) and computer science (computational complexity, constraint programming, and algorithmic game theory).

The group is part of the cluster Probability, Networks and Algorithms (PNA).