EPS Conference Organization
This page provides information for the Programme Committee (PC) and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the European Physical Society Conference on Plasma Physics, to facilitate and streamline the organization of this annual conference held by the Plasma Physics Division of the European Physical Society.
Time line
The conference is typically held in the last week of June or the first week of July.
| Approx. date | Actions | Action owner |
|---|---|---|
| November (preceding year) | Nomination of invited speakers | PC |
| January | First announcement email | LOC |
| January | Invitation of invited speakers | PC |
| February | Abstract submission (2-week period) | OCS |
| March | PC meeting to decide program | PC |
| April | Abstract website ready | OCS |
| April | Author confirmation emails sent | OCS |
| April-May | Early registration deadline | LOC |
| 2 weeks before conference | Paper submission (2-week period) | OCS |
| At conference | Paper website ready | OCS |
| At conference | Inventory of non-presented posters | LOC |
| After conference | Invited paper submission deadline | PC |
| After conference | Request Proceedings Volume code from EPS | LOC |
| After conference | Proceedings CD delivered to EPS for storage | LOC |
Program Committee
The main task of the Program Committee is to establish the conference program. For this purpose, it celebrates several meetings in preparation for the conference.
Conference program
The conference lasts one week (five days). Each day, the morning session is plenary, and the afternoon session is divided into 4 parallel oral sessions and a poster session. The 4 parallel sessions correspond to the 4 topical areas:
- Magnetic Confinement Fusion (MCF)
- Beam Plasmas and Inertial Fusion (BPIF)
- Dusty and Low-Temperature Plasmas (DLTP)
- Basic and Astrophysics (BA)
Traditionally, Wednesday afternoon is kept free.
Satellite conferences are typically held on the days following the main conference; the LOC will provide rooms for those.
November meeting
In November of the preceding year, the PC meets to establish the general program (emphasis, scope) and draw up a list of possible invited speakers. Previous to the meeting, there may have been a period in which EPS members could have presented (anonymous) suggestions for invited speakers (web interface, provided by the LOC). The precise dates of the various phases (see time line above) will also be established.
March meeting
At the PC meeting in March, the PC will make the following decisions, based on the output from the OCS system (abstract pdf files and an Excel index file; see Section below on Submissions):
- Discuss doubtful submissions
- Reject unacceptable abstracts
- Decide whether similar presentations should be joined in a single presentation
- Decide which presentations will be orals (using the author’s Presentation Preference as a guide, and taking into account the review observations)
- Elaborate the final conference program: mainly, the distribution of Invited/Plenary, Oral, and Poster presentations over the 5 conference days (the time schedule)
- Appoint session leaders and referees for the Invited papers
- Assign the final Conference ID to each abstract (I1.001, O2.015, P2.030, etc.).
Essentially, the outcome of the meeting is (a) the conference program and (b) the above-mentioned Excel file, with one column added for the Conference ID. The PC will communicate the latter to the OCS operator in order for him to elaborate the final abstract website.
June meeting
Immediately preceding the conference, a meeting will be held. At this meeting, last-minute program changes will be discussed and post-deadline slots will be allotted.
Local Conference Organization
Conference website
The LOC provides a website with information for conference participants. It should contain, at least:
- The list of Committee Members
- The list of Invited Speakers
- The Conference program (after the PC March meeting)
- Important dates
- Instructions for authors (for the preparation of abstracts/papers, oral presentations, and posters)
- Links to the submission system
- Links to the registration system
- Information on accommodation
- Information on local transport
Some foreigners may need official 'letters of invitation' in order to apply for a travel visa at the embassy in their home country. The LOC should provide these, if needed, well ahead of the conference.
Budget
Each year's budget usually takes the preceding year's accounts as a starting point. The goal of the budget is twofold: (a) to keep the registration fee as low as possible, while (b) achieving a close balance between expenses and revenue. A part of the budget is reserved to subsidize the conference fee of participants with scarce resources.
Expenses
The main expense items are:
| Description | Comment | Fraction of total (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Renting of conference centre | Plenary room, parallel session rooms, poster area, several small meeting rooms, equipment (sound, projectors, computers, WIFI); poster boards | xx |
| Refreshments, coffee breaks etc. | Provided by catering service | xx |
| Registration and hotel reservation | Delegated to external company | xx |
| Publication of invited papers in a Special Issue of PPCF | IOP | xx |
Revenue
Revenue is obtained from various sources. The main source of revenue is the registration fee (see list below). Further income may be obtained from support by local government and sponsoring by local companies.
Fee types, in order of decreasing amount:
- Non EPS members
- EPS Members
- Students
- Accompanying persons
Fees typically vary according to the time of registration: the fee is reduced for early registration. Fees apply to all conference participants (including Invited speakers). The typical number of participants in this conference is around 600. The European Physical Society may have bilateral agreements with other national societies regarding conference fees, so that members of these national societies may be entitled to the reduced 'EPS Members' fee. The LOC should check this with EPS.
Registration
Conference registration is handled independently from the submission of abstracts and papers. Registration implies payment of:
- The registration fee
- Optional fees associated with the conference dinner, excursions, and other items
- The cost associated with hotel reservation (if required)
It may be convenient to have registrants provide their 'Conference ID', i.e., the conference code of their abstract. That will allow linking registrations to contributions and checking whether abstract submitters will actually attend the conference.
Local organization
Apart from the items mentioned in the budget above, local organization involves:
- Sign boards (indicating the conference location and the location of the various meeting rooms, etc.)
- Poster boards, poster attachment materials
- Computer connection facilities, WIFI
- Assistance personnel (microphones in meeting rooms, presentation computers) - often students
- Tables, chairs, clocks for session chairpersons (a good system to time the talks is very necessary, preferably with visible alarms as the allotted time for the talk is nearly complete)
- Pointers, water for speakers
Submissions
Various different types of conference contributions are distinguished:
- Invited contributions (both Plenary and ordinary), delivered as a talk with duration of approx. 35 or 30 minutes, respectively
- Oral contributions, delivered as a talk with a duration of approx. 15 minutes
- Poster contributions
The talk durations include some time for questions (typically 5 minutes), and may vary slightly per conference.
Abstract submission
Submissions of all abstracts (including Invited) are currently handled by the Online Conference System. No email submissions are admitted. Once submissions are complete, the OCS operator will attempt to correct mistakes (repeated submissions, erroneous submission formats, ...) and prepare files for the March PC Meeting (abstract pdf files, an Excel index file).
Late (only special cases) and post-deadline submissions are handled via email.
Conference ID
In the PC March meeting, the PC will assign a Conference ID to each abstract. Traditionally, the Conference ID has the following structure: XY.nnn, where
- X = a letter: I, O, or P for Invited, Oral, or Poster
- Y = a number: 1...5 for Monday...Friday
- nnn = a sequence number
Other numbering schemes are possible, e.g., replacing nnn by mnn, where m = 1...4 indicates each of the four main topics (MCF, BPIF, DLTP, BA).
Paper submission
4-page papers
Submissions of 4-page papers (corresponding to Oral and Poster contributions) are currently handled by the Online Conference System. Unlike the abstracts (refereed by the PC), the 4-page papers are not refereed. However, only contributions that have actually been presented at the conference are eligible for publication in the conference Proceedings. This requires the LOC to make a list of empty poster boards at the conference, in order to be able to remove submitted 4-page papers that were not presented.
Invited papers
Invited papers, with a length of 8 (ordinary invited) or 12 (plenary invited) pages, are not submitted via the OCS system, but directly to the journal in which they will be published (a special issue of Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion). They will be subjected to the usual refereeing process of the journal. The cost of publication is borne by the conference.
Additional material and ideas
- High quality EPS conference logo template: PDF vector format; PNG format
- Shared documents between PC, LOC and OCS (Excel or Word type documents) can be handled efficiently on-line using Google Docs.
