NeuralFEM Workshop 2026
Strasbourg, 14-18 December 2026
Monday 14 – Friday 18 December 2026
IRMA conference room, University of Strasbourg
Workshop
The week is about the certified approximation of partial differential equations by neural networks: how to make their predictions not only fast, which they already are, but also reliable, which they are not yet. Once trained, a network answers in near real time — what intra-operative guidance demands — but nothing guarantees that the answer is right, and that is what keeps such methods out of critical applications.
The topics are:
- neural-network methods for nonlinear and non-smooth problems — variational inequalities from contact and plasticity, fractional operators modelling anomalous diffusion — and hybrid schemes combining them with finite elements;
- a priori error analysis of the network approximation: function spaces suited to it, how many neurons a given accuracy costs, convergence of the training algorithms;
- a posteriori error estimation and adaptive strategies, carried over from finite elements to steer the refinement of a network;
- reduced basis methods, as the competing approach against which the networks are measured;
- applications in biomechanics and biomedicine: tissue compression, stent–artery interaction, anomalous diffusion in biological tissue.
The workshop is open to anyone working on these questions, and not only to the members of the NeuralFEM project — a MATH-AmSud collaboration between Uruguay, Colombia, Chile and France, whose first annual meeting this is.
Local organising committee
- Michel Duprez — Inria, MIMESIS team, Strasbourg
- Pablo Alvarez — Inria, MIMESIS team, Strasbourg
- Stéphane Cotin — Inria, MIMESIS team, Strasbourg
- Raphaël Bulle — Inria, MIMESIS team, Strasbourg
- Emmanuel Franck — Inria, MACARON team, IRMA, Strasbourg
- Victor Michel-Dansac — Inria, MACARON team, IRMA, Strasbourg
- Laurent Navoret — IRMA, Université de Strasbourg, and Inria
- Vanessa Lleras — IMAG, Université de Montpellier
Scientific committee
The coordinators of the NeuralFEM project.
- Michel Duprez — Inria, MIMESIS team, Strasbourg, France (international coordinator)
- Franz Chouly — Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Manuela Bastidas — Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia
- Rodolfo Araya — Universidad de Concepción, Chile
- Virginie Ehrlacher — CERMICS, École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, France
Contact
Questions about the workshop go to Michel Duprez, at the address in the menu.