FAME 2026: 2nd International School on Foundations and Advances of Model-Based Engineering
- Period
- Sep – Oct 2026
- Organisation
University of Málaga- Location
- Ada Byron Research Building, University of MálagaCalle Arquitecto Francisco Peñalosa 18, 29010 Málaga, Spain
- Posted
Three days of lectures on model-based engineering at the University of Málaga, the week before MODELS 2026: foundations, language engineering, model processing, model-based testing, AI and MDE, and two career talks. I pitched my research to the participants.
- Core lectures: MDE foundations, language engineering, model processing, model V&V
- Model-based testing lecture by Oszkár Semeráth and my supervisor Dániel Varró
- Hands-on model-driven optimisation with MOMoT
- Two-slide research pitch to the school's participants
- Career talks on academia and industry, with a visit to Google's GSEC Málaga
FAME, the International School on Foundations and Advances of Model-Based Engineering, is a school for master's and PhD students, postdocs and practitioners who work with models. After a first edition in Linz in 2024, the second ran from 30 September to 2 October 2026 at the University of Málaga, in the week before MODELS 2026, so most of us stayed on for the conference.
The programme
Lectures came in three kinds: core lectures on the foundations of MDE, topic lectures on current research, and career sessions with time for networking.
| Wednesday 30 Sep | Thursday 1 Oct | Friday 2 Oct | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | What is MDE? (Juan de Lara) | Language engineering (Benoit Combemale) | Model-based testing (Oszkár Semeráth, Dániel Varró) |
| 11:00 | AI and MDE (Lola Burgueño, Gunter Mussbacher) | MDE for digital twins (Judith Michael) | From proof of concept to tool (Alfonso Pierantonio) |
| 12:00 | Academic career (Antonio Vallecillo) | Hands-on MDE (Stefan Klikovits) | Collaborative work session |
| 14:30 | Student pitches | Model transformation and management (Antonio García-Domínguez) | Model V&V (Marsha Chechik) |
| 16:30 | Product line modelling (Inmaculada Ayala) | Excursion to GSEC Málaga | Collaborative closing session |
| Evening | Opening dinner | Industrial career (Paula Muñoz) | Guided tour of the city centre |
Wednesday: foundations, AI and the pitches
Juan de Lara (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) opened with the core concepts of MDE and the challenges it faces as AI takes on more of software development.
Lola Burgueño (University of Málaga) and Gunter Mussbacher (McGill University) traced AI in modelling from rule-based automation to LLM assistants, including the generation of realistic and diverse test cases.
Antonio Vallecillo (University of Málaga) gave the first career talk, on the decision points and trade-offs of an academic career.
In the student pitches, facilitated by Leen Lambers and Sébastien Mosser, every participant presented their research in two slides. Mine:
- Mission. A model-based approach to systematically generate and evaluate simulation-based assurance evidence for ASVs operating in challenging maritime environments.
- Results so far. An approach that generates assurance suites with 100% coverage on the functional (semantic) level for encounters of 3–6 vessels, and a framework that turns test-case descriptions into simulation runs.
Inmaculada Ayala (University of Málaga) closed the day with software product lines and feature modelling in UVL, followed by the opening dinner.
Thursday: languages, models and tools
Benoit Combemale (Inria) covered the engineering of modelling languages, from domain knowledge to a DSL with editors, interpreters and generators.
Judith Michael (University of Regensburg) showed how models support both building and running digital twins.
In the hands-on session, Stefan Klikovits (Johannes Kepler University Linz) used MOMoT to search for model transformation sequences with genetic algorithms, close to my own search-based scene generation with NSGA-II/III.
Antonio García-Domínguez (University of York) demonstrated model querying, validation and transformation with Eclipse Epsilon.
In the afternoon we visited GSEC Málaga, Google's cybersecurity engineering centre, where Paula Muñoz, who went from a PhD at the University of Málaga to Google, talked about life after the PhD in industry.
Friday: testing, tools and V&V
Oszkár Semeráth (BME) and Dániel Varró, my PhD supervisor, presented model-based testing, focusing on generating consistent, realistic and diverse models as test data for modelling tools and autonomous systems, with examples from the maritime domain among others.
Alfonso Pierantonio (University of L'Aquila) talked about turning a research prototype into a tool that outlives its paper, drawing on the Jjodel language workbench. The timing suited me, with the SceneGEMS tool demonstration at MODELS a few days later.
Marsha Chechik (University of Toronto) closed the lectures with V&V of models: what each family of techniques can guarantee, where those guarantees break down, and how learned components and assurance obligations change the picture, which is exactly the situation of an ASV.
Leen Lambers and Sébastien Mosser led the collaborative work and closing sessions, and the school ended with a guided tour of Málaga's city centre.