The 5th IMA Conference on Inverse Problems from Theory to Application, will take place from 8 to 10 September 2026 at Woburn House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HQ, UK.

Inverse problems remain at the heart of scientific discovery and technological innovation, spanning fields as diverse as medical and satellite imaging, biology, astronomy, geophysics, environmental sciences, computer vision, energy, finance, and defence. Fundamentally, these problems involve using a mathematical or physical model “backwards” to infer a quantity of interest from the observed effects it produces.

A main challenge resulting from using models “backwards” is that solutions are often not well posed, i.e., not unique or unstable with respect to small perturbations in the data. This difficulty continues to stimulate research and innovation at the interface of applied mathematics, statistics, engineering, and physics, leading to social and economic benefit through impact on science, medicine, and engineering.

The aim of this conference is to bring together mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists working on the theoretical and numerical aspects of inverse problems, alongside engineers and physicists, tackling challenging applications. We will discuss recent developments and open challenges in theory, methodology, and computational algorithms.