For five full days (from morning until night), close to 1,300 researchers from all over the world turned Porto into the epicentre of discussions that will shape the future of fields like machine learning and responsible AI. The largest European conference in the area could return to the city in 2035.
Every year, researchers working at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning gather at a key event: the ECML PKDD (European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases). This year, for the fourth time since the 1990s, Porto welcomed leading international experts in these domains.
The biggest machine learning conference in Europe landed in Porto thanks to INESC TEC. Over the course of five days, between 15 and 19 September, more than 1,300 participants from 60 countries came to the Alfândega do Porto to exchange views on emerging topics that go beyond the current state of the art. In a vibrant cultural and scientific atmosphere around subjects like AI, machine learning and data mining, João Gama – INESC TEC researcher and one of the conference chairs of ECML PKDD – provided a “very positive” assessment of a week packed with activities and diverse discussions “from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m..”
“The scientific quality was very high. Personally, I particularly enjoyed the panel on Responsible AI. I felt it was very well received,” he noted. And there was no time to waste: “the conference featured a research track, an applied data science track, 32 workshops, six tutorials, an industrial session, seven keynote speakers, four ‘Best Paper’ awards, and a ‘Test-of-Time’ award.” Within these settings, researchers explored topics such as Robustness and Uncertainty, Interpretability and Explainability of AI, Neural Networks, Large Language Models (LLMs), and Privacy and Security.
This was not Porto’s first time hosting the conference. The city first welcomed it in 1991, when it was still known as the European Working Session on Learning (EWSL). Only later would it merge into the two conferences that exist today: this year, Porto hosted the 35th ECML and the 29th PKDD. Since the turn of the century, the ECML PKDD has visited Porto every ten years: 2005, 2015 and now 2025.
And it may well return; according to João Gama, the feedback from this edition was once again “very positive”: the organising team – which included dozens of INESC TEC researchers – “did not receive a single complaint,” he said. “On the contrary: participants told us, for example, that they were delighted with the venues, especially the Palácio da Bolsa, where the banquet took place.” Now, the plan is to bring ECML PKDD back to Porto in 2035.
The organisation of the conference was led by INESC TEC, the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Porto (FEP), the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), with the support of the Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence.
The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.
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