Updated: July 24, 2020
Like so many other conferences these days, ICAPS 2020 will be an online event. Given the prevailing issues with global travel, combined with the possibility of new infection waves in Europe, we have decided that a fully online conference is the best option for our community at this point.
As the chairs, we are committed to design the best online ICAPS it is possible to have. A few basic facts:
- There will be no registration fee, except a small fee for main-conference authors to cover publication costs.
- The main conference is expected to be 4 days instead of 3 days, enabling us to go single-track and to cover all major time zones for every paper through 2 presentations and live Q&A/discussion for each.
- We will use a “prime time” time window, reasonably accessible from Australia through to California, for invited talks and other global events.
- The workshops and tutorials are expected to take place in the week before the main conference.
We are busy discussing the details, and we will be back to you with more information as we go along.
As much as it hurts us to not be able to greet you all in Nancy, we believe the online setting can be an opportunity. Let’s make the best of it!
Outdated news regarding re-organization due to COVID-19:
As you are all aware, the COVID-19 pandemic calls the location of ICAPS 2020 in Nancy (currently planned for October 26 – 30) into question. It seems unlikely that the entire community will be able to travel to Nancy; it is possible that Nancy will only be accessible for Europeans. We are hence seriously considering to move the conference completely online, as several other conferences have already done.
To obtain a better basis for taking this decision, and the various decisions that follow from it, we hereby ask for your help in a survey aimed at obtaining the following information:
1) Does the community prefer a small physical conference or a fully online conference?
2) If we go online then what are ideas/thoughts/preferences about the format?
3) Initial data regarding participation in a physical conference in October.
The survey is here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfua9qvq20ZiAk_-5YIXX5HPdfGykYJGXvrpTX7oDMWxlzW_Q/viewform?usp=sf_link
Please take a little time to fill this in. We are especially eager to see your thoughts and ideas in the free-text parts of this. Please do not hold back and share your thoughts/comments with us, whatever they may be.
As the chairs, we believe that an online edition might be an opportunity to go new ways and explore potential benefits to our community. But the decision is up to us all, hence this survey. We are looking forward to your comments!
The spread of the COVID-19 disease has forced us to make the hard choice to postpone ICAPS to the fall of 2020, precisely to October 26 – 30. We have made this decision with a heavy heart, and the support of the ICAPS council, to guarantee the health and safety of the ICAPS community, and try to make sure as many of you as possible will be able to attend ICAPS. The venue will be the same as previously planned.
We expect that other deadlines (workshops and demos) as well as the summer school will be delayed accordingly. Please stay tuned to further announcements.
We will also still support remote presentations for authors who will be unable to attend, and remote participation to the best of our ability. In the extreme case that COVID-19 makes it impossible to hold the conference physically even at this late date, we will consider to move the entire conference online.
Further information
French Public Health Agency (in French)
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde
French Government (in French)
https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/coronavirus
World Health Organization
https://www.who.int/es/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019