The Third Symposium on Simplicity in Algorithms (SOSA 2020) will be co-located with the 31st ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2020) in Salt Lake City, USA, January 6–7, 2020.

Symposium on Simplicity in Algorithms is a conference in theoretical computer science dedicated to advancing algorithms research by promoting simplicity and elegance in the design and analysis of algorithms. The benefits of simplicity are manifold: simpler algorithms manifest a better understanding of the problem at hand; they are more likely to be implemented and trusted by practitioners; they are more easily taught and are more likely to be included in algorithms textbooks; and they attract a broader set of researchers to difficult algorithmic problems.


Papers in all areas of algorithms research are sought. An ideal submission will advance our understanding of an algorithmic problem by, for example,

- introducing a simpler algorithm,
- presenting a simpler analysis of an existing algorithm, or
- offering insights that generally simplify our understanding of important algorithms or computational problems.

We are especially interested in papers that make material more accessible to a wider audience, such as undergraduates, or for more specialized topics, general algorithms researchers.

Submissions should contain novel ideas or attractive insights, but they are not expected to prove novel theorems. That is, the results themselves can be known, but their presentation must be new.

Paper Submission:

Authors must submit their papers electronically, in PDF format. The submission server is available at: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sosa20.

Proceedings: The SOSA 2020 proceedings will be published in Dagstuhl’s OASIcs series.

Format: Submissions should begin with a title page containing the paper title, each author’s name, affiliation, and email address, and an abstract summarizing the contributions of the paper. There is no page limit. The paper should begin with a clear description of the algorithmic problem to be solved, a survey of prior work on the problem—including a candid assessment of prior work in terms of simplicity and elegance—and a discussion of the contributions of the paper. The body of the paper should be written for a general theoretical computer science audience, and substantiate the main claims of the paper with full proofs. The submission should be typeset using 11 point font, in a single-column format with ample spacing throughout and ample margins all around. The submissions ought to be visually easy to read. Authors are welcome to format their submissions using the OASIcs LaTeX template.

Brevity is a hallmark of simplicity. Authors are specifically encouraged to submit short and simple papers.

Best Paper Award:

The program committee may designate one or more papers as SOSA Best Papers. All submission will be considered.

Important Dates:

-- Short Abstract Submission Deadline: August 9, 2019.
-- Full Paper Submission deadline: August 16, 2019.
-- Notification of acceptance/rejection: early October, 2019.
-- Camera-ready deadline: late October, 2019.
-- Conference: January 6–7, 2020, Hilton Salt Lake City Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.