First Call for Participation

EUROLAN-2025 

Summer School on
NLP in the Age of Complex Networks and Agentic AI

14 – 20 September 2025, Timișoara (Romania) & online

The 17th in the series of EUROLAN biannual Schools on Natural Language Processing

EUROLAN-2025 will bring together researchers and experts in machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), reasoning systems, and computational linguistics applied to natural language processing (NLP), with a special focus on the interaction between NLP, complex networks, and agentic AI.

Following the tradition of previous EUROLAN schools (see past editions), each day will feature:

  • Morning sessions with tutorials, offering in-depth insights into key concepts.
  • Afternoon hands-on exercises, where participants will apply lecture content to real-world problems and develop small-scale applications as a basis for future work.
  • Brainstorming sessions and round tables, encouraging direct interaction with experts and fostering collaborative discussions.

EUROLAN is open to students at the master and PhD levels, as well as young researchers, but exceptional undergraduates who demonstrate a strong interest in Complex Networks, Agentic AI, and NLP are also welcome. 

EUROLAN organizers consider offering a number of student grants that will cover half of the registration fee. The grants are awarded after a selection process of submitted abstracts. The satellite event will incorporate a session for presentations of selected abstracts. Please contact Adrian Spătaru by email at adrian.spataru@e-uvt.ro providing the following information: 

  • Letter of Intent
  • CV
  • Abstract of research results

School structure and topics 

Tutorials and practical sessions will deal with the following principal topics: 

Graph-Based Representations of Text and Knowledge
  • Leveraging graph structures for semantic and syntactic modeling
  • Knowledge graphs in NLP applications
Social Network Analysis for Linguistic Modeling
  • Understanding discourse patterns and linguistic behaviors in social media
  • Network-based approaches to language evolution and misinformation detection
Influence Propagation and Discourse Dynamics in Online Platforms
  • Modeling opinion dynamics and information spread in digital spaces
  • Detecting echo chambers and polarization in online discourse
Multimodal NLP: Integrating Text, Image, and Speech Processing
  • Bridging language with vision and audio for richer AI understanding
  • Applications in content generation, retrieval, and accessibility
NLP and Autonomous AI
  • Exploring the role of NLP in agentic AI systems
  • Language-based reasoning and decision-making in AI agents

Brainstorming sessions will allow participants the opportunity to critically engage with course material, exchange ideas, and explore open challenges in AI and NLP, as well as discuss regulatory frameworks, ethical AI development, and mechanisms to align AI behavior with human values.

The School will include a half-day visit in the city of Timișoara and a one-day excursion to the West Romanian Region, where participants will discover cultural sites and traditions (including local food and wine). 

ECTS credits

The organizers have established the curriculum such that 3 European Credits (ECTS) can be awarded if attendance and assessment requirements are fulfilled. Satisfaction of the requirements will be based on full attendance and completion of assignments. Students are responsible for ensuring that their home university will accept the credits, and final credit conversions must be made by the home university. For more information on the credit transfer, contact your home university. The total effort required for the summer school involves 15 hours of lectures, 15 hours of laboratory activities, 30 hours of individual study based on bibliographical materials before the summer school, and 15 hours of assignment preparation during EUROLAN.  

Registration

Those interested in attending the school are asked to fill in the registration forms available here, not later than August 1st 2025. Since the number of participants in the School is limited, you will be contacted after this date concerning your acceptance as an EUROLAN participant.

Satellite Event

A Student Workshop will be held as a satellite event of EUROLAN-2025. The workshop will enable participants to present their own work related to the topic of the School to an audience of practitioners, researchers, and scholars, and provide opportunities for receiving feedback. 

The registration fee for EUROLAN-2025 will be reduced by half for participants with accepted papers at the Student Workshop (to be announced soon).

PhD Students are encouraged to submit their work to the Doctoral Symposium organized in the framework of the SYNASC event. 

Registration Fee

Students:

  • before 1 August (early registration):  500 EUR 
  • after 1 August:  600 EUR

Non-students: 

– 600 EUR 

The fee provides access to all tutorials and hand-on sessions and includes all school materials, coffee breaks, lunches, and social events (city tour, excursion) during the entire period of the school. 

Important dates

1 Augustlast day for early registration
1 – 10 Augustconfirmation of registration and of acceptance of the doctoral paper sent to participants
August 27last day for late registration
27 August-13 Septemberconfirmed participants will receive introductory texts and guidelines (to ensure adequate background, recommended readings should be undertaken before the school begins)
15 September (Monday) – 19 September (Friday)EUROLAN-2025 School
20 September (Saturday)excursion
21 September (Sunday)closing of the School 

Invited Lecturers

  • Mădălina Chitez – West University of Timișoara
  • Mihai Dascălu – University Politehnica of Bucharest
  • Liviu Dinu – University of Bucharest
  • Nancy Ide – Vassar College and Brandeis University
  • Rada Mihalcea – University of Michigan
  • Dan Tufiș – Romanian Academy
  • others TBA

Venue 

The city of Timisoara hosts several prestigious academic institutions (the West University, the “Politehnica” University, the University of Medicine, and others). The city and the surrounding region have an unique history in Romania, being over the centuries an object of dispute for several states (Roman, Hungarian, Ottoman, Austrian), which left their still visible marks, and, above all, a very multicultural society which constitutes a beautiful example of harmony in Romania and in the Balkans (30 Km from Serbia). The openness of mind of its inhabitants is probably one of the reasons for starting the anti-Communist movement in Romania and for being now one of the economically most advanced locations in the country.

How to reach Timișoara

Timisoara can be reached by direct flights from Bucharest, Budapest, Munich, Vienna, Roma, London, Madrid and other cities in Europe. Details on the flight schedule can be found at “Traian Vuia” Timisoara Airport.

Timisoara can also be reached by train from the main cities of Romania. Travel by train from Bucharest to Timisoara takes around 10 hours; train travel from Budapest takes around 6 hours. More details on the train routes can be found here.

Program

Each day of the School will typically comprise two tutorials in the morning and one or two hands-on sessions in the afternoon, each lasting 1-1.5 hours (the balance of tutorials and hands-on sessions may vary from topic to topic). The final schedule will be available on the School’s website in the near future. 

The School will begin on Sunday evening, September 14, with the registration of participants. The participants will be invited to discover Timișoara in a free tour in the afternoon/evening of Monday, September 15. A welcome reception will be given on Tuesday evening, September 16. During the School, evenings are usually reserved for engaging discussions, going out in the city, and networking. A day-long or half-day excursion will be organised on Saturday, September 20. 

The SYNASC related event

SYNASC – Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing is a yearly symposium covering topics related to symbolic computation, numerical computing, artificial intelligence, distributed computing and theory of computing. The symposium also includes related workshops and a special session for PhD students. It will be held at the West University of Timisoara on September 22 – 25. Visit the SYNASC website at: General Information – SYNASC 2025

Accommodation

Low-cost accommodation for EUROLAN-2025 students will be available in the University’s hostel (single or shared double rooms). Alternatively, participants may opt for a number of hotels in the city of Timisoara (a list can be found on the website, here). 

Program Committee

Organizing Committee (tentative)

Contact

Organizing Institutions

  • West University of Timișoara
  • “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
  • Romanian Academy, with the Institute of Computer Science in Iași and the Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Bucharest
  • Vassar College and Brandeis University (USA)
  • Academy of Technical Sciences of Romania
  • The Romanian Association of Computational Linguistics (ARLC)
  • Institute e-Austria Timisoara (IeAT)

Partners of the Event