IMBSA 2027 – Call for Papers

Paphos, Cyprus, September 15-17, 2027

International Symposium on Model-Based Safety and Assessment

Modern safety-critical systems are changing rapidly. They increasingly combine physical components, complex software, connected services, autonomous behaviour and artificial intelligence. Machine learning, foundation models and intelligent agents are moving from experimental technologies into systems whose behaviour can have real consequences for people, infrastructure and society.

At the same time, the fundamental challenge remains unchanged: how can we understand, predict and assure the behaviour of complex systems before failures occur?

IMBSA brings together researchers, practitioners, tool developers and industry working on model-based and automated approaches to safety, dependability and assurance. The symposium provides a forum where advances in modelling, formal analysis, probabilistic reasoning, system engineering and safety assurance meet emerging developments in AI, autonomy and digital engineering.

IMBSA 2027 invites contributions that advance the state of the art, demonstrate methods on realistic systems, report lessons from industrial practice, or challenge the community with important new problems.

We particularly encourage work that connects established strengths of model-based safety engineering with the new assurance challenges created by increasingly complex, autonomous, adaptive and AI-enabled systems.

A Conference Connecting Research, Technology and Practice

IMBSA is intended not simply as a venue for presenting papers, but as a meeting place for the model-based safety and assurance community.

The symposium brings together:

• Scientific research, presenting new theories, methods and evidence;

• Industrial experience, showing how safety and assurance methods perform on real systems and where important challenges remain;

• Tools and demonstrations, allowing participants to experience new technologies rather than merely read about them;

• Emerging ideas, creating space for discussion of new system classes, new risks and new approaches to assurance.

This interaction is particularly important today. Safety engineering must increasingly deal with systems that are interconnected, software-intensive, data-driven, adaptive and capable of making autonomous decisions. Traditional analysis remains essential, but it must evolve to address systems whose behaviour may change during operation and whose failure mechanisms cannot always be captured entirely at design time.

IMBSA 2027 seeks work that helps shape that evolution.

Topics of Interest

We welcome contributions on all aspects of model-based safety, dependability and assurance, including (but not limited to) the following broad themes.

Model-Based Safety and Dependability

Model-based safety assessment and analysis; dependability modelling; failure and fault propagation; causal and probabilistic analysis; dynamic risk assessment; reliability, availability, maintainability and resilience; model-driven safety engineering.

System Engineering, Architecture and Digital Engineering

Safety-aware architectures; integration of MBSE and safety engineering; cyber-physical and software-intensive systems; systems of systems; digital twins; simulation and co-simulation; model interoperability; engineering lifecycle integration.

AI, Autonomy and Intelligent Systems

Safety and assurance of machine learning, generative AI, foundation models and AI agents; autonomous and adaptive systems; intelligent robotics; multi-agent systems; human–AI teaming; uncertainty and confidence assessment; explainability; runtime monitoring and assurance; AI-assisted safety engineering.

Verification, Validation and Safety Assurance

Formal methods; model checking; specification and verification of safety requirements; simulation- and scenario-based verification; testing and fault injection; safety and assurance cases; continuous and runtime assurance; evidence generation; certification, standards and regulatory compliance.

Safety, Security and Resilience

Integrated safety and cybersecurity analysis; threat, hazard and risk modelling; adversarial behaviour; fault and attack propagation; resilience of interconnected and AI-enabled systems; trustworthy operation under uncertainty.

Tools, Automation and Industrial Applications

Safety analysis tools and toolchains; automated generation and analysis of safety models; knowledge-based and data-driven approaches; benchmarks and datasets; industrial case studies and deployment experience across domains including aerospace, automotive, transport, robotics, energy, manufacturing, healthcare, maritime systems, critical infrastructure and other safety-critical applications.

This list is deliberately broad. We particularly welcome submissions that cross traditional boundaries. For example, by combining model-based and data-driven techniques, connecting design-time analysis with runtime assurance, or applying established safety concepts to emerging forms of autonomy and AI.

Types of Contributions

IMBSA 2027 solicits Regular Papers and Short Papers.

Regular Papers

Regular papers should present significant and original theoretical, methodological or practical results relevant to the model-based safety and assurance community and clearly explain their contribution beyond the state of the art.

Suitable contributions include:

• Research papers presenting new theories, methodologies or technologies;

• Industrial and case-study papers demonstrating application at realistic or industrial scale;

• Tool papers presenting significant safety or assurance tools, platforms and integrated toolchains;

• Industrial experience papers describing deployment, evaluation, challenges and lessons learned;

• AI safety and assurance papers addressing the modelling, analysis, verification and assurance of AI-enabled, autonomous or intelligent systems.

Regular papers should be 12–15 pages, including references and appendices, and will normally be presented orally at the symposium.

Short Papers

Short papers provide a more flexible route for bringing new ideas, emerging research, early results and practical technologies to the IMBSA community.

They may present:

• Promising research directions or challenging open problems;

• Preliminary methods and results;

• Industrial applications and experience;

• New tools and demonstrations;

• Datasets and benchmarks;

• Emerging safety and assurance concepts;

• Provocative positions that can stimulate discussion within the community.

Short papers should be 4–6 pages and may be presented orally or as a poster or demonstration, at the discretion of the Program Committee.

Authors of accepted tool and demonstration papers will have the opportunity to present their technology live during an interactive conference session.

Why Submit to IMBSA 2027?

The challenges facing safety engineering increasingly sit between disciplines. A safety engineer may need to understand machine learning; an AI researcher may need to reason about hazards and assurance; a system architect may need models that remain connected to operational evidence; and industry needs methods that can move beyond laboratory demonstrations into credible engineering practice.

IMBSA 2027 aims to bring these communities together.

We therefore particularly encourage submissions that:

• Demonstrate genuinely new approaches to difficult safety and dependability problems;

• Connect models to evidence from real systems;

• Bridge research and industrial application;

• Integrate methods that have traditionally been studied separately;

• Make safety analysis more automated, scalable or usable;

• Address the assurance of AI-enabled and autonomous systems without abandoning rigorous engineering foundations;

• Identify important problems for which current methods are simply not good enough.

Whether your contribution develops a new theory, analyses a complex industrial system, introduces a practical tool, tests an existing method under realistic conditions, or opens an important new research direction, we would like IMBSA 2027 to be the place where that work is discussed.

Submission and Publication

Regular and short papers must be prepared using the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) templates.

Submissions should be made through the IMBSA 2027 EasyChair system:

https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=imbsa2027

All submissions will undergo full review by the Program Committee.

Regular contributions are planned for publication in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) proceedings.

At least one author of each accepted paper must register for and participate in the conference for the paper to be included in the proceedings.

Authors should consult the Important Dates section of the IMBSA 2027 website for the current deadlines for abstract submission, full paper submission, notification and camera-ready papers.

Join the IMBSA Community in 2027

As engineered systems acquire greater complexity, connectivity, intelligence and autonomy, assuring their behaviour is becoming both more difficult and more important.

IMBSA 2027 invites the safety, dependability, systems engineering and AI communities to help define the methods by which these systems can be understood, assessed and ultimately trusted.

We look forward to your contributions.

Website: https://cyprusconferences.org/imbsa2027/