PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Pascal Bercher

Pascal Bercher is an AI planning researcher whose work covers hierarchical task network (HTN) planning, partial-order causal-link planning and heuristic design. After studying computer science at the University of Freiburg, he earned a doctorate at Ulm University in 2017 with a thesis on hybrid planning, which won the ICAPS Best Dissertation Award in 2019. He helped found the ICAPS workshop on hierarchical planning in 2018, joined the Australian National University in 2019, and co-authored planners that won five of the six HTN tracks at the 2023 International Planning Competition. An Australian Research Council DECRA, running from 2024 to 2027, funds his project on automated modelling assistance for planning models. Since 2025, he is a tenured Associate Professor at ANU; in 2026 he was named an AAAI Senior Member and selected as one of three keynote speakers at ICAPS 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2003–2009

    Computer science at Freiburg

    He studies computer science for a Diplom, roughly a Bachelor's and a Master's in one degree, at the University of Freiburg in Germany from 2003 to 2009.

  2. 2009–2017

    Doctorate on hybrid planning

    He joins the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Ulm University in 2009 and works on automated planning under Susanne Biundo-Stephan. In December 2017, he receives his doctorate for the thesis Hybrid Planning – From Theory to Practice, which extends hierarchical task network planning with ideas from partial-order causal-link planning.

  3. 2018–2019

    Founding the HPlan workshop

    With colleagues, he founds the ICAPS workshop on hierarchical planning to bring together scientists working on different aspects of hierarchical planning. It meets in Delft in 2018 and in Berkeley in 2019.

  4. 2019

    ICAPS Best Dissertation Award

    His Ulm dissertation Hybrid Planning – From Theory to Practice wins the ICAPS 2019 Best Dissertation Award. The awards committee credits it with rekindling interest in HTN planning by putting it on firm formal ground and connecting it to recent developments in classical planning.

  5. November 2019–December 2024

    Lecturer and senior lecturer at ANU

    In November 2019, he leaves Ulm for the Research School of Computer Science at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is a lecturer there until December 2021 and a senior lecturer from January 2022 to December 2024, and gives an invited talk in the New Faculty Highlights program at AAAI 2021. His research covers hierarchical task network planning, partial-order causal-link planning and classical planning, with work on computational complexity, algorithm and heuristic design, and modelling assistance.

  6. 2023

    Winning five IPC 2023 tracks

    Two planners he co-authors win five of the six hierarchical tracks of the 2023 International Planning Competition at ICAPS. PandaDealer, built with Conny Olz and Daniel Höller, wins the three total-order tracks, and a script by Ying Wu, Conny Olz, Songtuan Lin and Bercher, which turns partial-order problems into total-order ones, wins two partial-order tracks.

  7. 2024–2027

    A DECRA for modelling assistance

    The Australian Research Council awards him a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for the project Automated Modelling Assistance for the Creation of Complex Planning Models, which runs from mid-2024 to mid-2027. The project aims to build techniques and tools that make the modelling process easier and guarantee desired model properties.

  8. Since 2025

    Associate Professor at ANU

    He becomes a tenured Associate Professor at the Australian National University in 2025, and ANU's School of Computing lists him as Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow. In 2026, he is selected as one of three keynote speakers at ICAPS 2026 and is awarded AAAI Senior Member status.

Career

  1. Since 2019Australian National UniversityLecturer, Senior Lecturer

Education

  1. 2017Universität UlmDoctorate
  2. 2009University of FreiburgDiplom

From the biography.

  1. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Australian National University. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Australian National University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Australian National University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Australian National University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Pascal Bercher yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Pascal Bercher | ANU School of Computing comp.anu.edu.au. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Bio | academic webpage of Pascal Bercher bercher.net. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Dr. Pascal Bercher - Universität Ulm uni-ulm.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Report on the First and Second ICAPS Workshops on Hierarchical Planning | Interactive AI Magazine interactiveaimag.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Pascal Bercher is the winner of the ICAPS Best Dissertation Award 2019 - Universität Ulm uni-ulm.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. ICAPS-2019 icaps19.icaps-conference.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Further Honours | academic webpage of Pascal Bercher bercher.net. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. International Planning Competition 2023 HTN Tracks | IPC 2023 HTN Tracks ipc2023-htn.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Research Grants | academic webpage of Pascal Bercher bercher.net. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. ARC funding for ANU early career researchers | Research anu.edu.au. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. AI systems expertise celebrated at major international conference | ANU College of Systems and Society systems.anu.edu.au. Checked 22 October 2026.