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

Third 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. See the confirmed lectures below.

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.

Keynote speech: Roberto Navigli, 'Is Lexical Semantics Dead in the LLM Era?'

We are delighted to announce Roberto Navigli (Sapienza University of Rome) as keynote speaker of the summer school who will deliver a keynote speech 'Is Lexical Semantics Dead in the LLM Era?'

Summer school programme

The summer school programme will feature the following lectures:

Invited lecture

'Quantum Natural Language Processing: Foundations, Challenges, and Insights'

Ellena Lloret (University of Alicante)

'Explainable AI in Natural Language Processing'

Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)

'Quality Estimation for Machine Translation'

Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University)

'Understanding Language Models'

Hansi Hettiarachchi (Lancaster University)

'LLMs for low-resource languages'

Robiert Sepúlveda Torres and Iván Martínez (University of Alicante)

'Fairness in Machine Learning: Evaluating Gender Bias in LLMs'

Juan Pablo Consuegra-Ayala (University of Alicante)

'Gaze data for NLP research: recording methods and analysis'

Cengiz Acarturk (Jagiellonian University)

'Beyond the Single Text: NLP Reading in Digital Humanities'

Isuri Anuradha (Lancaster University)

'Automatic hyperparameter optimisation and model selection for NLP pipelines'

Ernesto Luis Estevanell (University of Alicante)

'Legal NLP in the LLM era'

Damith Premasiri (Lancaster University)

'Machine Translation for Low-Resource Languages'

Alicia Picazo-Izquierdo (University of Alicante)

'Sentiment analysis: from rule-based methods to Large Language Models'

Maram Alharbi (Lancaster University)

Panel discussion

A panel discussion 'The future of NLP methods and language models' is scheduled as part of the summer school (https://summer-school.gplsi.es/panel/). The panel will be hosted/moderated by Ruslan Mitkov (Lancaster University and University of Alicante) and will include contributions from

Roberto Navigli (Sapienza University of Rome)

Elena Lloret (University of Alicante)

Tharindu Ranasinghe (Lancaster University)

Salima Lamsiyah (University of Luxembourg)

Nasredine Semar (CEA)

Yoan Gutiérrez Vázquez (University of Alicante)

Gražina Korvel (Vilnius University)

Venue, dates and accommodation

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. See the summer school website for recommended accommodation options (prospective participants are advised to book accommodation at their earliest convenience, as availability is limited) or more details in general.

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 can be completed at https://summer-school.gplsi.es/registration/. Kindly note that early-bird registration closes on 25 May 2026.

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

The summer school website is updated on regular basis. Alternatively, interested parties can email summer-school@dlsi.ua.es for more information.