Given a graph and an integer k, the goal of the graph partitioning problem is to find a partition of the vertex set in k classes, while minimizing the number of cut edges, and respecting a balance constraint between the classes. In this paper, we present a new memetic algorithm for the solution of the problem which uses both a tabu operator and a specialized crossover operator. The algorithm is tested by using the benchmarks of the graph partitioning archive. Our experiments show our memetic algorithm to outperform state‐of‐the‐art algorithms proposed so far for the problem and to reach new records for a majority of the tested benchmarks instances.
