----------------------------------------------------------------------- Second International Conference on Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction (FSCD'17) Minutes on the Business Meeting - Sep 6th, 2017, 17:20 (Oxford, UK) Chair: Luke Ong Secretary: Martin Lester ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Agenda: 1. Welcome by Steering Committee Chair, Luke Ong 2. Report of FSCD 2017 PC Chair, Dale Miller 3. Report of FSCD 2017 Conference Chair, Sam Staton 4. Progress Report of FSCD 2018 (member conference of FLoC 2018) - PC Chair: Helene Kirchner - Conference Chair: Paula Severi 5. Proposals to host FSCD 2019 - Dortmund: Jakob Rehof - Paris: Stefano Guerrini 6. Election of two new Steering Committee members. - Candidates: Carsten Fuhs, Stefano Guerrini, Sam Staton. 7. Any Other Business ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Welcome by Steering Committee Chair, Luke Ong Luke Ong welcomed everyone to the meeting. He summarised the role of the SC as looking after the general well-being of conference and its direction of travel. He said its most important task is appointment of PC chair, who appoints the PC. Its next most important task is appointment of the conference chair. 2. Report of FSCD 2017 PC Chair, Dale Miller Dale Miller gave his report as PC chair. He thanked the chairs of some committees that were not mentioned elsewhere in his report: the conference chair (Sam Staton), the workshop chair (Jamie Vicary) and the student bursary chair (Ohad Kammar). He gave some statistics about the composition of the PC, followed by some on paper submission and reviewing. The paper acceptance rate this year was 39%. Statistics were comparable to last year, except that no systems papers were accepted this year. He remarked that systems papers competed with other papers for selection for the programme; they were not put in a separate pool. Every paper had 3 reviews and a rebuttal. Dale said that he found the rebuttal process helpful in deciding the final programme. An award for the best paper by junior researchers had been planned, but no qualifying papers were accepted. He mentioned a proposal to extend eligibility as a junior researcher from from 3 years post-PhD to 7 years post-PhD in order to increase the number of eligible papers. The programme comprised 4 invited speakers and 29 contributed full papers of 15 pages plus 5 pages for references/appendices. There were 11 workshops. Proceedings will be published by LIPIcs. This year, no USB drive was distributed to attendees, only an URL to online proceedings. The use of the OpenConf system allowed easier entry of accurate metadata. Some papers will be invited for inclusion in a special issue of LMCS. 3. Report of FSCD 2017 Conference Chair, Sam Staton Sam Staton gave his report as Conference Chair. This year, FSCD had 260 registrants in total (including workshops), of which 105 registered for the main conference. This is an increase on last year. The HDRA/String and TLLA workshops turned out to be larger than expected. The registration fee for the main conference was 240-480 GBP; for workshops it was 40-60 GBP. Including all workshops, the conference had 5 venues and 6 caterers, which made organisation complicated. Sam thanked Oxford's Department of Computer Science for free use of some of its rooms for workshops. Other workshop rooms were paid for, with the cost being shared among all workshops. The main conference had to have same fees as ICFP, as they were colocated. Sam reviewed some statistics of registrants by country. He thanked all the organisers and helpers. 4. Progress Report of FSCD 2018 (member conference of FLoC 2018) - PC Chair: Helene Kirchner - Conference Chair: Paula Severi 4.1. Conference Chair: Paula Severi Paula Severi gave her report. FSCD 2018 will be in Oxford as part of FLoC. The main conference will run 9th-12th July. There will be 16 workshops. All are expected to be in the 2 days preceding the main conference, except for Modular Knowledges, which will occur afterwards. She advertised some details common to other FLoC events. There should be plenty of accommodation, but she advised not to leave booking it until the last minute. She noted that Sandra Alves will be the FSCD Publicity Chair for 2018. 4.2. PC Chair: Helene Kirchner Helene Kirchner gave her report. She advertised the call for papers. She presented some statistics on the PC and deadlines relating to paper submission and publication. 5. Proposals to host FSCD 2019 (conducted between items 6.2 and 6.3 to allow time for counting votes for the new SC members) - Dortmund, Germany: Jakob Rehof - Paris, France: Stefano Guerrini 5.1. Dortmund, Germany Jakob Rehof presented his proposal. Dortmund is one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe. It is easy to reach: it has its own minor airport and is about 45 minutes by train from Dusseldorf Airport. Other major German airports are also well-connected. He proposed the end of June 2019 or start of July 2019. As a venue, he suggested the "Dortmunder U" building in the city centre, in which the university is a stakeholder. It has 174 seats in the main theatre, with 3 smaller meeting/workshop rooms (40, 20 and 10 seats); there is a further free space area. Accommodation would be in hotels in the city centre. He suggested Zeche Zollverein as a venue for a social event. 5.2. Paris, France Stefano Guerrini's proposal was presented by Giulio Manzonetto. For the main 4 days of the conference, he suggested 1st-4th July or possibly 17th-20th June. The conference would be organised by the university Paris 13, specifically the LoVe and LIPN groups. As the main campus is too far north, he proposed Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Paris Nord in La Plaine Saint-Denis as a venue. It has 300 seats in the main auditorium, 140 seats in a theatre and further conference and meeting rooms. It has video recording/streaming facilities. Paris has two main airports and high-speed train connections. The venue is reachable by Metro 12 or bus 139/239. A range of hotels are available in Paris, as well as student accommodation on campus Villetaneuse. He proposed 3 days for workshops. Provisional fees would be 320-360 EUR for the main conference and 50 EUR per day for workshops. He gave a budget projection. 5.3. Questions and Advisory Vote Luke Ong said that there would be an advisory vote at the meeting, but the SC will make final choice. He invited questions from the floor (paraphrased below). - Question: How much will Dortmund cost to attend? - Jakob Rehof: I cannot give an estimate, but as Dortmund is not an expensive place, I expect it to be within normal bounds. - Jamie Vicary: The Paris proposal included external funding. Is it secured or provisional? - Giulio Manzonetto: The funding from the university is secured. The funding from CNRS is not, but is very likely to be awarded. - Sam Staton: Have you thought carefully about workshop numbers? - Jakob Rehof: Yes. It is one of the challenges for my proposal, as we only have a limited number of rooms in the building. If we have 16 workshops, I cannot promise no overlap between workshops and the main conference. I think it would be doable in a reasonable way, but it would be a challenge. - Giulio Manzonetto: We should have enough space. There was a vote by show of hands. Dortmund: 32 Paris: 20 Luke Ong said he would inform the SC of the outcome of the advisory vote. 6. Election of two new Steering Committee members. - Candidates: Carsten Fuhs, Stefano Guerrini, Sam Staton. 6.1. Composition of SC Luke Ong explained that the SC comprises 3 past PC co-chairs and 6 elected members. 2 new members were to be elected. He mentioned that SC member Kris Rose passed away in September 2016 and invited Sandra Alves to say a few words in his memory. 6.2. Election Procedure Luke Ong explained the election procedure. Each candidate had submitted an election statement, which was posted on the conference website a week before the conference. Every attendee was given 2 votes, which could be distributed between the 3 candidates: 2 votes to a single candidate, or 1 vote each to two different candidates. The candidates with the greatest and second greatest number of votes would be elected. Voting was conducted by secret ballot. 6.3. Election Results The results were: Carsten Fuhs: 43 Stefano Guerrini: 30 Sam Staton: 75 Sam Staton and Carsten Fuhs were elected to the SC. 7. Any Other Business 7.1. Future Colocation of FSCD Luke Ong asked whether attendees were in favour of colocation. He said that advantages were having more talks, from which people could pick and choose and having more people to meet. He proposed a vote on the following questions: 1. Should FSCD regularly colocate with an established conference? 2. Do you support regular colocation with ICFP? 3. Do you support colocation with CADE? However, an attendee proposed that it would be more useful to have a discussion (paraphrased below). - Question: How do you define "regularly"? - Luke Ong: It could be every year. It could be every other year. - Jakob Rehof: There is a big difference. I like the current practice of FSCD sometimes being by itself and sometimes colocated. - Question: Perhaps you could ask whether we want to colocate in 2019? - Luke Ong: It is unlikely to be practical. For example, CADE has decided to meet outside Europe. - Jamie Vicary: The original plan for FSCD was to colocate workshops with ICFP too. This turned out to be unworkable because there was not enough space. ICFP is also much bigger financially and charges about 4 times as much as FSCD. So colocation of workshops does not make sense, from my perspective. - Luke Ong: It seems like the workshops are colocated. - Jamie Vicary: No, you must pay separately for ICFP and FSCD workshops, and some people were angry about this. - Brigitte Pientka: One reason ACM charges high fees is because there are more scholarships and bursaries. - Jamie Vicary: We are currently free to increase fees to give out grants if we want. - Helene Kirchner: We should be flexible. Sometimes the dates are not convenient, even if we want to colocate. We should decide on a case-by-case basis. - Attendee: My impression is that colocation with ICFP reduces attendance to FSCD talks. - Sam Staton: I am wary to draw that conclusion; I saw many ICFP attendees at FSCD talks. Luke Ong summarised the discussion by noting that people appeared not to be in favour of colocation every year, but people are willing to consider proposals. He will pass this on to the SC. 7.2. Close of Meeting Luke closed the meeting with thanks to the invited speakers, PC chair and PC members, conference chair, workshop chair and local organising team, authors and participants.