The International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics was established with the aim of providing
researchers and scholars with a forum for discussing new ideas and research on metaheuristics
and their integration with techniques typical of other ?elds. The papers accepted for the sixth
workshop con?rm that such a combination is indeed e?ective and that several research areas can
be put together.Slowlybut surely thisprocesshasbeen promotingproductivedialogue
amongresearcherswithdi?erentexpertiseanderodingbarriersbetweenresearch areas. The papers in
this volume give a representativesample of current researchin hybrid metaheuristics. It is
worth emphasizing that this year a large number of papers demonstrated how metaheuristics can
be integrated with integer linear
programmingandotheroperationsresearchtechniques.Constraintprogramming is also featured which
is a notable representative of arti?cial intelligence solving methods. Most of these papers are
not only a proof of concept - which can be valuable by itself - but also show that the hybrid
techniques presented tackle di?cult and relevant problems. In keeping with the tradition of
this workshop special care was exercised in the review process: out of 22 submissions received
12 papers were selected on the basis of reviews by the Program Committee members and
evaluations by the Program Chairs. Reviews were in great depth: reviewers sought to p- vide
authors with constructive suggestions for improvement. Special thanks are extended to the
Program Committee members who devoted their time and - fort. Special gratitude is due to Andrea
Lodi and Vittorio Maniezzo who both accepted our invitation to give an overview talk.
