Supported by mobility funding from the VASSAL project, four researchers from the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology (BUT FIT) attended the international research seminar "Challenges in Robust Decision-Making Under Uncertainty" held in famous Schloss Dagstuhl from July 22 to July 24, 2026. The event was co-organized by Assoc. Prof. Milan Češka from FIT BUT, who helped prepare a timely research program bringing together leading international experts in formal methods and AI.
Meeting details are at https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/seminars/seminar-calendar/seminar-details/26303.
Understanding and verifying decision-making in uncertain, dynamic environments is a key area within automated analysis and system reliability -- a central focus of the VASSAL project. Sequential decision-making often relies on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) as a primary formal framework. However, real-world applications face major hurdles, including sensor limitations, perception errors in neural networks, incomplete data, and unmodeled causal effects. Addressing these challenges is essential for building safe and explainable autonomous systems, as these models must guarantee predictable behavior and transparent reasoning even when operating in unpredictable environments. The seminar brought together researchers to address these gaps and develop practical methods with real-world impact.
In addition to deepening technical insights, the seminar provided an excellent opportunity for mobility and networking. The discussions enabled the BUT FIT team to pinpoint key scientific questions and lay the groundwork for future collaborative research projects within the broader European community.
