From June 28 to July 1, 2026, the University of Economics in Katowice (UEKat) hosted the 26th International Scientific Conference "Group Decision and Negotiation" (GDN 2026). This recurring academic conference is co-organized by the INFORMS GDN Section alongside local universities and research institutions worldwide. Scientific leadership for GDN 2026 was provided by Prof. Tomasz Wachowicz (UEKat) and Prof. Danielle Morais (Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil), while the program committee was chaired by Prof. Marek Szopa (UEKat) and Prof. Ginger Ke (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada).

The conference brought together 98 participants from 20 countries, featuring a total of 70 presentations. Three keynote lectures were delivered, including one by the winner of the 2026 INFORMS GDN Section Award, Prof. Roman Słowiński (Poznań University of Technology). The conference was accompanied by side events such as a doctoral consortium, a special session dedicated to the memory of Prof. Melvin Shakun, a conference tour to the Guido Mine, and a Gala Dinner featuring the presentation of awards granted by GDN INFORMS.

Among the honors and awards presented at the Gala, special mention goes to the Gregory Kersten GDN Journal Best Paper Award, which is granted for the best paper published in the journal Group Decision and Negotiation. This year, the award was presented to Prof. Tomasz Wachowicz and Ewa Roszkowska for their paper titled "Enhancing TOPSIS to Evaluate Negotiation Offers with Subjectively Defined Reference Points" (Group Decision and Negotiation, 34(4), 715–749).

The following awards were also presented:

• INFORMS GDN Appreciation for Outstanding Service Award: Prof. Liping Fang (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada) in recognition of his commitment to animating the GDN community during his section presidency.

• GDN Springer Best Paper Award: Atefeh Jebeli, Manmohan Aseri, and Balaji Padmanabhan for the presentation Negotiating the Small Stuff: AI Agents for Low-Stakes Group Decisions.

• Two joint GDN Springer Best Student Paper Awards:

  • Kazuki Matsuo and Masahide Horita for the presentation Blockchain as a Decentralized Allocator: A Consensus-based Auction Model for Multi-Robot Task Allocation.

  • Ayato Kitadai, Shunta Yoshimura, Takuya Nakashima, Noora Torpo, Rei Miratsu, Naoki Mizutani, and Nariaki Nishino for the presentation “Sail Fast, Then Wait” in First-come, First-served Port Queues: Information Sharing for Sustainable Shipping.

The full report from the GDN 2026 conference is available in the newsletter published by GDN INFORMS: https://gdnconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/GDN-Newsletter-July-26-vf.pdf

Conference details can be found on the official event website: https://gdnconference.org/gdn2026/