Overview
The 7th Summer School on Argumentation: Connecting Argumentation (SSA 2026) will take place from 9–13 September 2026 (holiday on the 11th) at CSIC Delegación de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. The school is co-located with the 11th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA 2026).
It is the seventh event in the series of Summer Schools on Argumentation. Previous editions took place in Dundee, Scotland (2014), Potsdam, Germany (2016), Warsaw, Poland (2018), Perugia, Italy (2020), Cardiff, Wales (2022), and Hagen, Germany (2024).
The main aim of SSA 2026 is to provide attendees with a solid foundation in the basics of formal argumentation as well as insights into applying formal argumentation and connections with other approaches in AI.
The school welcomes both students and researchers in different fields not limited to argumentation, including e.g. non-monotonic reasoning, knowledge representation, logic programming, linguistics, natural language processing, philosophy, and psychology, just to mention a few of them.
The program will include courses, a doctoral consortium and a student session organized by OHAAI. The doctoral consortium is a mentoring program bringing together PhD students and senior researchers in formal argumentation. Moreover, participants are encouraged to join the student program co-organized by OHAAI.
Registration
Registration for the Summer School is possible as part of the COMMA 2026 Registration .
Doctoral Consortium
The Summer School on Argumentation 2026 will host a Doctoral Consortium, together with OHAAI. With this Doctoral Consortium we aim to bring together PhD students and senior researchers. The aims of the consortium are:
- to promote contact among PhD students and more senior researchers;
- to support students with information and advice on academic, research, and industrial careers.
The doctoral consortium consists solely of informal meetings between PhD students and senior researchers, planned at their own convenience. Students have the opportunity to also present their research for a wider audience at the OHAAI.
PhD-students who have a specific research proposal and/or preliminary research results and have sufficient time before completing their PhD-trajectory are invited to submit an application consisting of:
- a 1 page summary of their research, including a plan for the remainder of their PhD,
- a short curriculum vitae,
- optionally: suggestions on senior researchers with similar research interests.
Applications can be submitted via EasyChair: [Link TBA]
The deadline for submissions is TBA.
OHAAI Session
The Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI (OHAAI) focuses on ongoing PhD work on Argumentation in AI, published as an annual online open-access handbook. OHAAI is designed to serve as a research hub to keep track of the latest and upcoming PhD-driven research on the theory and application of argumentation in all areas related to AI.
A special session organized by the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI will be part of the program. The OHAAI-session is designed for students to showcase their work on argumentation via posters and engage in a vibrant discussion on the latest advances and trends from the most recent OHAAI volume. Participants will first deliver a brief presentation on their posters, followed by a more detailed poster session. Topics can range from overviews of recent publications, initial research findings, thesis summaries, or a project open for discussion.
More information about the OHAAI-session, including submission guidelines, can be found at ohaai.github.io/ssa.
Program
The detailed program will be announced closer to the event.
Contact
For questions and comments to the organizers please contact the SSA organizers: Anna Rapberger and Jesse Heyninck.