Call for Track Proposals

ICAPS is a broad-based conference for high-quality scholarly work on a all topics related to the mathematics, algorithms, models, and applications of automated planning and scheduling. As such, the main track of the conference, as with other conferences with a wide scope (e.g., AAAI, IJCAI), reflects a broad cross-section of research and the program committees include researchers from a variety of relevant fields and sub-fields. Occasionally, as research focuses mature and shift, there is a lag between the research topics and interests of a subset of the ICAPS community and the program committees, resulting in challenges for new research directions having a knowledgeable set of reviewers. Such a dynamic can prevent the conference from continuing to be the primary forum for work on advanced planning and scheduling.

For ICAPS2020, we are calling for special track proposals that explicitly address this phenomenon. In particular, we are looking for research topics that, while being relevant to the goals and topics of ICAPS, are under-represented due to, for example, differences in research goals, methodology, or culture or due to relatively recent interest. We see tracks as a mechanism for ICAPS to be diverse and dynamic.

Details of Proposal

Please send proposals in a PDF to Chris Beck by September 15, 2019.

There is no specific form or length for proposals, though they should be no longer than necessary.

The suggested contents:

  • names and affiliations of primary proposers
  • a short description of the track theme
  • a justification as to why the track theme fits with the goals of the special track mechanism
  • an indication of the expected interest in the track from the ICAPS community and neighboring communities

Evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated by the Program Chairs using a “Goldilocks” criteria, balancing

  • the expectation of a critical mass of institutionally and geographically distributed researchers in an area relevant to ICAPS who are able to produce a number of high-quality submissions, with
  • the extent to which people with the requisite knowledge are not sufficiently represented in the usual ICAPS reviewer pool.

We are targeting a few thematic tracks in addition to the main and applications and so, depending on demand, some good proposals may not be accepted. Lack of track acceptance does NOT mean that papers on this theme are NOT welcome at ICAPS.