2024 marks a milestone for COMMA, bringing as it does the tenth installment of our conference, and a coming-of-age eighteen years since the first edition. The conference series has its roots in an EU 6^th framework project, Argumentation Service Platform with Integrated Components, ASPIC, which, at its conclusion, founded the conference series with the inaugural edition hosted by the University of Liverpool in 2006. Since then, the biennial International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) has provided a dedicated forum for presentation and discussion of the latest advancements in this interdisciplinary field, covering basic research, systems and innovative applications. The conference has nurtured and facilitated the steady growth of interest in computational argumentation research worldwide that has gone hand in hand with the development of the conference itself and of related activities by its underpinning community. Since the second edition, organized by IRIT in Toulouse in 2008, plenary invited talks by world-leading researchers and a software demonstration session became an integral part of the conference programme. The third edition, organized in 2010 by the University of Brescia in Desenzano del Garda, saw the addition of a best student paper award. The same year, the new journal Argument and Computation, closely related to the COMMA activities, was started. Since the fourth edition, organized by the Vienna University of Technology in 2012, an Innovative Application Track and a section for Demonstration Abstracts were included in the proceedings. At the fifth edition, co-organized in 2014 by the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee in Pitlochry, the main conference was preceded by the first Summer School on Argumentation: Computational and Linguistic Perspectives. The same year also saw the launch of the first International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation (ICCMA). Since COMMA 2016, hosted by the University of Potsdam, the COMMA proceedings have been Open Access. This COMMA was also the first that included additional satellite workshops in the programme. COMMA 2018 was hosted by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish National Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. It included an industry afternoon bringing together businesses, NGOs, academics and students interested in practical applications of argument technologies in industry. COMMA 2020 was organised in Italy for the second time, by the University of Perugia, but, due to the COVID pandemic, was run fully online. It was preceded by the 4^th Summer School on Argumentation: Computational and Linguistic Perspectives (SSA 2020), and featured a demonstrations session and three satellite workshops: the International Workshop on Systems and Algorithms for Formal Argumentation (SAFA), initiated at COMMA 2016; a new Workshop on Argument Visualization. 2020 also saw the peripatetic workshop Computational Models of Natural Argument, CMNA, which is one of the longest-running events in the community, and has previously colocated with conferences such as IJCAI, ECAI and ICAIL, join COMMA for its 20^th edition. COMMA 2022 was once again an in-person event, for the third time in the UK, but this time in hosted by Cardiff University. It was preceded by the 5^th Summer School on Argumentation, with a focus on “Explainability Perspective” and by four workshops: CMNA 2022, the 21^st Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument; SAFA 2022, the 4^th International Workshop on Systems and Algorithms for Formal Argumentation; as well as ArgXAI 2022, the 1^st International Workshop on Argumentation for eXplainable AI, and ArgML 2022, the 1^st International Workshop on Argumentation & Machine Learning.

For its tenth edition in 2024, the COMMA conference returns for the second time to Germany, this time to FernUniversit´lat in Hagen. We are delighted to be able to present an exciting programme of invited talks, long paper presentations (including some in the innovative applications track) and demonstrations. Our invited talks come from three leading lights in argumentation. Leila Amgoud is Research Director (DR1) at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Deputy Director of IRIT (Toulouse Institute of Computer Science) since January 2021, Member of the ADRIA team at IRIT, EurAI Fellow since 2014, and PI of an ANITI chair on argumentation. She has been working on formal models of argumentation since the 1990s and is drawing upon that track record to talk to us about different classifications of argumentation semantics. Ulrike Hahn is professor of psychology at the School of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, where she is Director of the Centre for Cognition, Computation and Modelling. One of the UK’s most prominent psychologists, she has a long track record of research at the boundary between cognitive science and argumentation with a particular focus on Bayesian argumentation and notions of argument quality, which form the central themes of her keynote. Serena Villata is a senior researcher (Directrice de recherche) in computer science at the CNRS, Chair in Artificial Intelligence at the Interdisciplinary Institute for Artificial Intelligence 3IA Côte d’Azur and Deputy Scientific Director of the 3IA Côte d’Azur Institute. Her work at the interface between computational models of argument and computational linguistics, and argument mining in particular, has established her as a leading figure in the field, from which vantage point she reviews themes of argument quality, fallaciousness and trustworthiness. Setting the tone of the conference, the invited talks are just one part of a strong programme. From the 63 submissions we received, we accepted 26 full papers and with a further 12 accepted as demos with an accompanying extended abstract (2 pages), and 2 accepted as a full paper with an accompanying demo. We would like to thank our programme committee of 83 members drawn from 18 countries and supplemented by a further 10 additional reviewers, who have worked to ensure a selective and robust quality in our programme. In addition to the main programme, the conference also benefits as usual from a range of satellite events. The now well-established summer school returns, with its 6^th edition covering tutorials from academic and industrial leaders in the area, and including again a session from the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI, OHAAI, as well as the doctoral consortium. The conference is also complemented by three co-located workshops: the 2^nd International Workshop on Argumentation for eXplainable AI (ArgXAI 2024); the 5^th International Workshop on Systems and Algorithms for Formal Argumentation (SAFA 2024); and the 24^th Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (CMNA 2024). This diverse and intellectually stimulating programme is due to the hard work not only of the programme committee and reviewers, but also of the workshop chair, Sarah Gaggl; summer school chairs, AnneMarie Borg and Jesse Heyninck; and Elfia Bezou Vrakatseli and Andreas Xydis from the OHAAI committee. Of course the conference would not exist at all without the COMMA steering committee; the proceedings would not exist at all without the work of Eimear Maguire who has helped tirelessly with assembly; and the conference would not run at all without the superb local organising committee in Hagen. To all of these, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude.

Finally, it is with a heavy heart that we note that this is the first COMMA at which we shall not be joined by one of the community’s most widely published, most extensively cited and most highly respected scholars. Trevor Bench-Capon passed away on 20^th May 2024 and as colleague, collaborator, mentor or friend to many of us, he will be sorely missed. As a way of marking his role in founding, supporting and driving forward both the community and the COMMA conference itself, we will be naming the best student paper prize in his honour: the Trevor Bench-Capon Best Student Paper Award. Given Trevor’s commitment to unwavering support and encouragement of research students, and his natural ability to inculcate the highest standards of research excellence, it is fitting that the Trevor Bench-Capon prize will recognise the very best of student research in the field.

Chris Reed (Programme chair)

Matthias Thimm (Local chair)

Tjitze Rienstra (Demo chair)

Dundee, Hagen and Maastricht, July 2024