The 16th Lisbon Machine Learning Summer School (LxMLS 2026) wrapped up last week after six days of learning, debate, and hands‑on experiments in machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). Held from 20 – 25 July at Instituto Superior Técnico, the event brought together researchers, graduate students, and industry practitioners for a programme featuring theory, practice, and discussions on the future of language technologies.

LxMLS is organised yearly by Instituto Superior Técnico, INESC‑ID, the Instituto de Telecomunicações, the Lisbon ELLIS Unit for Learning and Intelligent Systems (LUMLIS), Zendesk, and IBM Research, with Isabel Trancoso, researcher at INESC-ID and CMU Portugal faculty member, and Arlindo Oliveira, INESC-ID researcher and INESC President, serving on the Steering Committee. The in-person event featured morning lectures at the Centro de Congressos, while afternoon lab sessions were hosted in the Pavilhão de Informática. There were various lectures, labs, and invited talks designed to help attendees deepen their understanding of machine learning foundations and apply them to real‑world language processing challenges.

One of the highlights of the week was Friday’s debate panel, “From Tokens to Thoughts: The Changing Roles of Language and Learning”, featuring Arlindo Oliveira, Mário Figueiredo (Instituto de Telecomunicações), Adèle Ribeiro (RWTH Aachen University), and Raquel Fernández (University of Amsterdam).

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Images: © Instituto Superior Técnico