Metaheuristics "In the Large"
This paper tackles the problem of improving scientific rigor and reproducibility for metaheuristics researchers by advocating for shared infrastructure and protocols.
This paper addresses the fragmentation and lack of reproducibility in metaheuristics research. It proposes a vision for stronger scientific and computational infrastructure, including common protocols, to improve the development, analysis, and comparison of new metaheuristic approaches.
Following decades of sustained improvement, metaheuristics are one of the great success stories of optimization research. However, in order for research in metaheuristics to avoid fragmentation and a lack of reproducibility, there is a pressing need for stronger scientific and computational infrastructure to support the development, analysis and comparison of new approaches. We argue that, via principled choice of infrastructure support, the field can pursue a higher level of scientific enquiry. We describe our vision and report on progress, showing how the adoption of common protocols for all metaheuristics can help liberate the potential of the field, easing the exploration of the design space of metaheuristics.