The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing

The Paradigm Shift: From Rules to Models in Natural Language Processing

International Summer School

Alicante, Spain, 15, 16 and 17 June 2026

https://summer-school.gplsi.es

Second Call for Participation

Natural Language Processing (NLP) has witnessed a clear paradigm shift: 
the transition from rule-based approaches to data-driven language 
models. While rule-based approaches dominated NLP for many years, during 
the 1990s and early 2000s they gradually gave way to statistical and 
machine-learning methods. It would be fair to say that data-driven 
models--and, most prominently, Deep Learning (DL), including more 
recently Large Language Models (LLMs)--have taken the world by storm. 
Deep Learning models are now used almost everywhere, across nearly every 
discipline, and Natural Language Processing is no exception. DL has 
proved highly promising so far, delivering improvements for almost every 
NLP task and application. However, as observed on numerous occasions, 
the outputs of DL models are not always ideal, with some studies 
reporting cases in which machine-learning approaches do not necessarily 
outperform the 'old-fashioned' rule-based ones.

The overarching theme of the summer school will be this paradigm shift, 
with lectures and practical sessions reflecting the latest trends at 
both theoretical and practical levels. More specifically, the programme 
will combine lectures focusing on theoretical foundations with hands-on 
practical sessions.

Specific topics will include an Introduction to Large Language Models 
(LLMs), Explainable AI in LLMs,  Datasets and bias in LLMs, Building 
foundational LLMs for low-resource languages, Machine Translation for 
Low-Resource Languages, LLMs and sentiment analysis, Model and 
hyperparameter optimisation and Eye-tracking and gaze data for NLP and 
language models, among others.

The summer school will be ideal for both newcomers and experienced 
professionals in NLP, computer science, data science, cybersecurity, 
corpus linguistics, language technologies, and related disciplines, 
offering a unique opportunity to deepen expertise and engage with the 
rapidly evolving world of LLMs.

Panel discussion

A panel discussion on the future of NLP methods and LLMs is scheduled as 
part of the summer school. The panel composition is available here: 
https://summer-school.gplsi.es/panel/

Venue and dates

The summer school will take place at the research institute of 
Informatics of the University of Alicante and will take place on 15, 16 
and 17 June 2026.

Keynote speaker

Roberto Navigli (Sapienza University of Rome)

Lecturers

The list of summer school lecturers includes:

Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University)

Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)

Cengiz Acartürk (Jagiellonian University)

Hansi Hettiarachchi (Lancaster University)

Juan Pablo Consuegra Ayala (University of Alicante)

Robiert Sepulveda Torres (University of Alicante)

Alicia Picazo Izquierdo (University of Alicante)

Isuri Anuradha (Lancaster University)

Damith Premasiri (Lancaster University)

Ernesto Luis Estevanell (University of Alicante)

Maram Alharbi (Lancaster University)

Summer school Directors

Tharindu Ranasinghe (University of Lancaster)

Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)

Summer School Chair

Ruslan Mitkov (University of Alicante)

Advisory Committee

Manuel Palomar Sanz (University of Alicante)

Rafael Muñoz Guillena (University of Alicante)

Andrés Montoyo Guijarro (University of Alicante)

Organising Committee

Raúl García Cerdá (University of Alicante)

Alicia Picazo Izquierdo (University of Alicante)

Ernesto Luis Estevanell (University of Alicante)

Maram Alharbi (Lancaster University)

Registration

Registration will open in early April 2026. In the meantime, please see 
the registration fees here: https://summer-school.gplsi.es/registration/

Related events

The summer school will follow the second international conference 
_Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence_ (NLPAICS'2026) 
which will take place in Alicante on 11 and 12 June 2026 
(https://nlpaics2026.gplsi.es). Those who register for both events will 
benefit from a discounted registration fee.

Further information

Further information will be provided in subsequent calls. Alternatively, 
interested parties can email [email protected] for more 
information.

-- 
Amal Haddad Haddad (She/her)
Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación
Universidad de Granada |https://www.ugr.es/personal/amal-haddad-haddad
Lexicon Research Group |http://lexicon.ugr.es/haddad
Co-Convenor, BAAL SIG 'Humans, Machines, 
Language'|https://r.jyu.fi/humala
Event Coordinator, BAAL SIG 'Language, Learning and Teaching'

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