MULTI 2025 - 12th International Workshop
on Multi-Level Modeling

7 October 2025
MODELS 2025, Michigan, USA

The MULTI workshop series is the premier venue for researchers and practitioners working on multi-level modeling and multi-level software development. Multi-level modeling represents a new object-oriented paradigm for both conceptual modelling and software engineering. In contrast to conventional two-level approaches, it supports an unbounded number of classification levels and introduces concepts and mechanisms that foster reuse, adaptability, and control. While multi-level languages and tools have reached considerable maturity, the field still offers numerous challenges.

The MULTI workshop series aims at providing a platform for exchanging ideas and promoting further development of multi-level languages, methods, and tools. A particular goal is to encourage the community to, beyond proposing new approaches, analyse different approaches to multi-level modelling and define objective ways to evaluate their respective strengths and weaknesses.

The 12th International Workshop on Multi-Level Modeling (MULTI 2025) will be a single day event to held at the MODELS'25 conference.

Latest updates

  • Confirmed time slot for Ed's keynote and added bio. Keynote teaser will follow soon.
  • Ed Seidewitz is giving this year's keynote
  • Program for the 2025 edition is online
  • MULTI 2025 will run as a hybrid event from 08:30—17:00 on 7th October, 2025
  • MODELS 2025 will support virtual participation
  • Website created (8 November 2024)

Important Dates

  • Paper Submission: 3 10 July 2025 (AoE)
  • Authors Notification: 31 July 2025
  • Camera-ready Papers: 7 August 2025
  • Workshop: Tuesday, 7th October, 2025

Call for Papers

MULTI 2025 invites submissions of four different types:

  • regular research papers (10 pages).
  • challenge papers (10 pages).
  • position papers (5 pages).
  • industrial abstracts (2 pages).

Topics

Topics for regular and position papers include, but are not limited to:

  • the nature of elements in a multi-level hierarchy
  • the importance and role of deep-characterization mechanisms
  • criteria and approaches for comparing MLM approaches
  • methods and techniques for discovering clabjects and their specializations and classification relationships
  • design patterns addressing when and how to apply multi-level metamodelling
  • fundamental aspects of MLM, such as model composition and decomposition
  • model management in a multi-level setting
  • formal approaches to MLM
  • integration of modeling and programming languages in a multi-level setting
  • constraints in a multi-level setting
  • definition of behavioral semantics in a multi-level setting, including simulation
  • multi-level transformations, code generation, etc.
  • approaches for rearchitecting two-level models into multi-level models
  • case studies demonstrating advantages of multi-level techniques
  • industrial case studies
  • applying MLM to large and/or real-world problems
  • tool support for MLM
  • MLM in education

Submission guidelines

All authors must submit their contributions using a PDF file via EasyChair.

Industrial abstract authors need to submit a single-page PDF file containing the title of their contribution, the name and affiliation of authors, and an abstract of the multi-level problem they want to share in the workshop.

Submissions must adhere to the IEEE formatting instructions. LaTeX users should use the 8½ x 11 2-column LaTeX Template. Overleaf users should use the IEEE Overleaf Template. Word users should use the IEEE DOCX template (letter). Challenge papers (see section Challenges) must conform to the requirements in the challenge description.

Accepted papers will be included in the MODELS 2025 companion published by the IEEE. Accepted industrial abstracts will be published on the MULTI 2025 workshop website.

Additional notes for paper authors

Note that by submitting a paper to a MODELS workshop, authors acknowledge that they are aware of and agree to be bound by the IEEE guidelines on Plagiarism. In particular, papers submitted to MULTI 2025 must not have been published elsewhere and must not be under review or submitted for review elsewhere while under consideration for MULTI 2025.

Paper authors must ensure that all authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. IEEE and the MODELS conference have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of their published authors.

Challenges

Multi-level modeling challenges are designed as benchmark modeling scenarios that aim to support objective comparisons between multi-level modeling approaches, allow technologies to demonstrate their abilities, stress-test technologies in order to expose potential weaknesses, and deepen the mutual understanding of approaches.

Call for Challenges

As part of our efforts to get more industry input for the MULTI workshop, we are inviting all of you to submit challenges to the Call for the Industry Challenge we have created. We are counting on your expertise and creativity to enrich the workshop’s outcomes. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or need assistance with your submission.

Warehouse Challenge

The "Warehouse" challenge references a domain featuring representations of product copies, product specifications and product specification types. A particular emphasis is on how to guarantee certain properties at the product level without fully determining them, in other words, to support flexible but constrained variability.

The submission requirements for the Warehous Challenge and the domain example to use are available from the MULTI Warehouse Challenge Description. In particular note that submitted solutions must have the subtitle "A contribution to the MULTI Warehouse challenge".

If you would like to receive any kind of clarification regarding the challenge requirements, please contact the challenge authors who will be more than happy to answer any questions.

Collaborative Comparison Challenge

The Collaborative Comparison challenge aims at improving the mutual understanding of approaches within the multi-level modeling community by encouraging collaborations which are an opportunity to justify and thus clarify the need for existing differences, or, alternatively, lead towards homogenizing multi-level modeling.

Towards this end, the Collaborative Comparison Challenge specifically requires the application of two or more approaches to a prescribed domain example and mandates the discussion of commonalities and differences between the approaches in a joint paper authored by proponents of different multi-level modeling approaches.

Commonalities and differences should be discussed as they manifest themselves in the conceptualization of the domain example but also at a more general level. Respective discussion subjects which authors may choose to elaborate on include, but are not limited to, fundamental concepts such as the nature of levels, cross-level relationships, classification vs generalization, deep characterization, the treatment of attributes and operations, and the use of structural and behavioral constraints.

Discussions should seek to explore justifications for, and/or potential reconciliations of, fundamental differences rather than just documenting realization choices. An optional avenue towards contributing to the clarification of differences is the formalization of foundational concepts, thereby possibly discovering open questions and/or potential for unification.

The submission requirements for the Collaborative Comparison Challenge and the domain example to use are available from the MULTI Comparison Challenge Description [1]. In particular note that submitted solutions must have the subtitle "A contribution to the MULTI Collaborative Comparison challenge".

Previous Challenges

Solutions to the MULTI Process Challenge [2] are still welcome. Note that submitted solutions must have the subtitle "A contribution to the MULTI Process challenge".

References

[1] 

G. Mezei, T. Kühne, V. Carvalho and B. Neumayr, "The MULTI Collaborative Comparison Challenge," 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C), Fukuoka, Japan, 2021, pp. 495-496, doi: 10.1109/MODELS-C53483.2021.00077.

[2]  J. P. A. Almeida, A. Rutle, M. Wimmer and T. Kühne, "The MULTI Process Challenge," 2019 ACM/IEEE 22nd International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C), Munich, Germany, 2019, pp. 164-167, doi: 10.1109/MODELS-C.2019.00027.


Organizers

Arne Lange
Arne Lange

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Fernando Macias
Fernando Macías

Anzen Aerospace Engineering, Spain

Pierre Maier
Pierre Maier

University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany


Program Committee

  • Adrian Rutle, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway
  • Andreas Prinz, University of Agder, Norway
  • Bernd Neumayr, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Germany
  • Christoph G. Schuetz, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
  • Claudenir Fonseca, University of Twente, Netherlands
  • Colin Atkinson, University of Mannheim, Germany
  • Ed Seidewitz, Model-Driven Solutions, USA
  • Erik Burger, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
  • Ferenc Somogyi, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
  • Georg Grossmann, University of South Australia, Australia
  • Georg Hinkel, Hochschule Rhein-Main Wiesbaden, Germany
  • Gergely Mezei, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
  • Giancarlo Guizzardi, University of Twente, Netherlands
  • Jens Gulden, Utrecht University, Netherlands
  • Joao Paulo Almeida, Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, Brazil
  • Juan de Lara, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
  • Manfred Jeusfeld, University of Skövde, Sweden
  • Markus Stumptner, University of South Australia, Australia
  • Matt Selway, University of South Australia, Australia
  • Mira Balaban, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
  • Montali Marco, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
  • Thomas Kühne, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
  • Tony Clark, Aston University, UK
  • Ulrich Frank, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
  • Zoltán Theisz, Grepton Ltd., Hungary

Steering Committee

  • Colin Atkinson, University of Mannheim, Germany
  • Thomas Kühne, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
  • Juan de Lara, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain


Program

Welcome to the program of MULTI 2025! The workshop will place in room Workshop Room 1. You can find a satellite events schedule at the MODELS 2025 site. The time slots for paper presentations include at least around 10 minutes for discussion.

Tuesday, 7 October

Session 1 (Keynote)
08:30 - 10:00

Chair: Pierre Maier
08:30 Welcome and introduction
08:45 Keynote
Multi-Level Modeling for Systems Engineering
Ed Seidewitz
09:45 Discussion
10:00 Coffe break

Session 2 (Foundations of Multi-Level Modeling)
10:30 - 12:00

Chair: Ulrich Frank
10:30 Deep Specialization - Integrating Powertypes into Deep Modeling
Thomas Kühne and Arne Lange
11:00 Pragmatics in Multi-Level Modeling
Mira Balaban, Arnon Sturm and Azzam Maraee
11:30 Discussion
12:00 Lunch break

Session 3 (Multi-Level Modeling in Practice: Systems Design, Agility, and Teaching)
13:30 - 15:00

Chair: Mira Balaban
13:30 From the Lowlands of UML to the Highlands of MLM: An Evolutionary, Tool-Supported Multi-Level Method for Teaching Multi-Level Modeling
Ulrich Frank and Pierre Maier
14:00 Consistent Modeling of Agility: Applications of Flexible Multi-Level Modeling
Razieh Dehghani and Anne Koziolek
14:30 Bridging Requirements and Configurations: A Multi-Level Approach to System Design
Sándor Bácsi and Gergely Mezei
15:00 Coffe break

Session 4 (Opportunities ahead of Multi-level modeling)
15:30 - 17:00

Chair: Arne Lange
15:30 Panel discussion
16:45 Closing

Keynote

Ed Seidewitz
Multi-Level Modeling for Systems Engineering
Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary field focused on designing and managing systems across their lifecycle. In a world growing increasingly reliant on complex cyber-physical systems, this discipline is critical for integrating across the many engineering disciplines working on such a system, ensuring the system meets the needs of its customers and stakeholders. And Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is now becoming the accepted practice for doing this.
While multi-level modeling (MLM) concepts and terminology are not familiar to most systems modelers, many of the paradigmatic examples of MLM are quite relevant to the kinds of systems modeled by systems engineers. Further, MLM can be related to specific systems modeling techniques such as context-specific specialization of system features and product-line engineering. This talk will explore such possible intersections between MLM and MBSE, particularly in relation to the capabilities of the new Systems Modeling Language, version 2 (SysML v2), all in the context of the speaker’s own personal journey in and around the MLM and MBSE communities.
Ed Seidewitz

Ed Seidewitz is Chief Technology Officer at Model Driven Solutions, Inc., a long-time provider of enterprise and systems architecture services using model-based methods. Mr. Seidewitz has extensive background in state-of-the-art information system technologies and leading expertise in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and subsequent standards for executable UML with precise semantics. He is also experienced in agile system architecture and development in both the commercial and government sectors. He has 40 years of professional experience with the modeling, architecture and development of systems spanning diverse domains including aerospace, finance, acquisition and health care. He was submission-team co-leader and chief language architect for version 2 of the Systems Modeling Language (SysML v2). He currently co-chairs the OMG Systems Modeling Community and the Kernel Modeling Language (KerML) and SysML v2 Revision Task Forces.