The International Conference on Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation (UCNC) is a meeting where scientists from many different backgrounds are united in their interest in novel forms of computation, human-designed computation inspired by nature, and computational aspects of natural processes. UCNC provides a forum for such scientists to meet and discuss their work. The 19th UCNC will be hosted by Aalto University in Espoo, within the Helsinki metropolitan area in Finland.

Conference proceedings is planned to be published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series by Springer-Verlag. Extended versions of selected papers from the proceedings will appear in a special issue of the Natural Computing journal.
Topics of interest

Papers and poster presentations are sought in all areas that relate to unconventional computation and natural computation. Both theoretical and experimental papers are welcome. Typical, but not exclusive, topics are:

Programmable matter, material computing, molecular (DNA) computing, quantum computing, optical computing, chaos computing, collision-based computing
Self-assembling and self-organising systems, cellular automata, neural computation, evolutionary computation, swarm computing, artificial life, artificial immune systems, amorphous computing, membrane computing, physarum computing, super-Turing computation
Computational neuroscience, computational systems biology, synthetic biology, cellular (in vivo) computing

Submissions

The submission server can be accessed by clicking the following link:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ucnc2021

After logging in to your EasyChair account, select the "New Submission" menu item on the top of the page. If you do not have an EasyChair account, follow the instructions on the login page to create one.
Important Dates

Conference UCNC 2021: October 18-22, 2021
Early registration deadline: TBA
Notification of acceptance: July 9, 2021
Submission deadline: May 31, 2021

Registration

Details TBA.
Invited Speakers

The following plenary speakers have committed at this time:

Cody Geary (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Mikko Möttönen (Aalto University, Finland)

Further plenary speakers to be confirmed.

Programme

TBA
Workshops

The following independent workshops associated to the conference are currently in preparation:

Programmable Matter, organised by Christian Scheideler (Paderborn University, Germany)
Third International Workshop on Theoretical and Experimental Material Computing (TEMC 2021), organised by Susan Stepney (University of York, USA)

Practical Information

Contact address: ucnc2021@aalto.fi
Committees
Programme Committee (confirmed)

Selim G. Akl (Queen's University, Canada)
Pablo Arrighi (University of Marseille, France)
Peter Banda (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
Daniela Besozzi (University of Milano - Bicocca, Italy)
Julien Bourgeois (University of Franche-Comte, France)
Olivier Bournez (Ecole Polytechnique, France)
Cristian Calude (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Matteo Cavaliere (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Jerome Durand-Lose (Universite d'Orleans, France)
Angel Goni-Morero (Technical University of Madrid, Spain)
Masami Hagiya (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Mika Hirvensalo (University of Turku, Finland)
Natasha Jonoska (University of South Florida, USA)
Jarkko Kari (University of Turku, Finland)
Irina Kostitsyna (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands), Co-Chair
Robert Legenstein (TU Graz, Austria)
Makoto Naruse (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Pekka Orponen (Aalto University, Finland), Co-Chair
Matthew Patitz (University of Arkansas, USA)
Christian Scheideler (Paderborn University, Germany)
Susan Stepney (University of York, UK)
Gunnar Tufte (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)

Organising Committee

Pekka Orponen (Aalto University, Finland), Chair

UCNC Steering Committee

Thomas Bäck (Leiden University, The Netherlands)
Cristian S. Calude (University of Auckland, New Zealand, Founding Chair)
Lov K. Grover (Bell Labs, USA)
Natasha Jonoska (University of South Florida, USA, Co-Chair)
Jarkko Kari (University of Turku, Finland, Co-Chair)
Lila Kari (University of Waterloo, Canada)
Seth Lloyd (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Giancarlo Mauri (Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
Gheorghe Paun (Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Romania)
Grzegorz Rozenberg (Leiden University, The Netherlands, Emeritus Chair)
Arto Salomaa (University of Turku, Finland)
Tommaso Toffoli (Boston University, USA)
Carme Torras (Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics, Spain)
Jan van Leeuwen (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)