What is the difference between heuristics and metaheuristics?

Question

After some research about algorithms I found two terms which confuses me. I\'ve read at least 20 papers and yet, there aren\'t any clear definition about either. I hope someone

Answer 1

For a detailed explanation, see:

Sörensen, K. (2015). Metaheuristics—the metaphor exposed. International Transactions in Operational Research, 22(1), 3-18.

A metaheuristic is a high-level problem-independent algorithmic framework that provides a set of guidelines or strategies to develop heuristic optimization algorithms. The term is also used to refer to a problem-specific implementation of a heuristic optimization algorithm according to the guidelines expressed in such a framework (Sörensen, 2015).

The heuristics are the guidelines, metaheurstics is the framework that uses those.