A team of researchers affiliated with the AGH Faculty of Computer Science has published a scientific paper entitled “Strategic Cost Selection in Participatory Budgeting”, which was presented as a poster at one of the world’s most prestigious conferences in artificial intelligence and machine learning — NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego.
AGH was represented at the conference by Grzegorz Lisowski while the paper was also presented during the European parallel event (EurIPS) by Łukasz Janeczko.
The authors of the publication are:
Piotr Faliszewski, Łukasz Janeczko, Grzegorz Lisowski, Stanisław, Mateusz Szwagierczak – AGH Faculty of Computer Science, Piotr Skowron – University of Warsaw and Andrzej Kaczmarczyk – Czech Technical University in Prague.
NeurIPS is widely regarded as one of the most important global scientific conferences in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Every year it brings together thousands of leading researchers, engineers and industry representatives from all over the world. Papers presented at NeurIPS often define new directions in the development of modern AI methods and algorithmic theory.
About the paper
The paper focuses on the strategic behavior of project proposers in participatory budgeting systems. The authors analyze how individuals submitting projects may strategically adjust — and sometimes inflate — their reported project costs to increase the likelihood of their proposals being selected.
The study shows that the applied selection rules (including BasicAV, AV/Cost, Phragmén and the Method of Equal Shares) play a crucial role in determining whether systems promote realistic and proportional pricing or incentivize strategic overpricing.
The research combines formal game-theoretic models with empirical analysis based on real-world participatory budgeting data. The results can support cities and public institutions in designing fairer, more robust and more transparent participatory budgeting mechanisms.
The paper is available at:
https://neurips.cc/virtual/2025/loc/san-diego/poster/116308