Call for Special Sessions:

The ICIRA 2024 Conference organizing team would like to invite professionals and researchers in various areas of Robotics to propose a Special Session (SS) to be included in the program of ICIRA 2024 in Xi' an, China. Special sessions provide the opportunity to focus in detail on particular emerging topics (otherwise not reflected in the list of conference tracks), or focus on a specific research f ield where “birds of a feather” individuals would like to meet and discuss recent advancements. Special Sessions will adhere to the guidelines below.

Proposing a Special Session:

If you would like to propose and organize a special session, please provide us with a proposal using the template ICIRA 2024 Special Session proposal_template.docx, and including the following information:

• Title

• Brief description (approx. 100 words) focusing on why the proposed topic is attractive and significant and a list of topics (max. 10)

• Names, short biographies and contact info of SS organizers: there could be two or more organizers interested in promoting and attracting quality submissions to the special session.

An individual can be (co-) organizer of up to two Special Sessions. Please send your proposal in PDF format to Program Chairs cgjiang@xjtu.edu.cn and CC info@icira2024.org or by the deadline indicated on http://icira2024.org/

Organizing a Special Session:

Once approved, the organizers should publicize their Special Session (SS) and attract quality papers among researchers and practitioners. The approved SS will also be advertised through the conference website.

Papers submitted to special sessions will undergo the same review process as regular papers. The SS organizers will be responsible for organizing the peer review process, ensuring that minimum three reviews per paper are received.

Conflict of Interest (CoI):

Before starting the review process, SS organizers must declare papers which present a CoI for them. A CoI arises in situations where judgement of a paper quality cannot be ensured solely on the basis of technical content of the paper (judging authors who are close colleagues or papers authored by organizers). To ensure independent reviews, this Conflict must be marked as such in the submission system so that they can arrange the reviews of such papers.

Restrictions:

The SS Organizers must insure that:

• An individual cannot be a (co-)author of more than two papers submitted to the same SS.

• Papers from SS Organizers cannot exceed 60% of the content of the SS.

Successful SS:

A SS is considered successful when it results in a minimum of 6 accepted papers. The authors of these papers should come from at least three independent research groups (other than the organizers groups). If a session results in a smaller number of papers accepted, those will be reallocated to regular sessions whenever possible. The Conference reserve the authority to cancel SSs in cases where un-ethical behavior has been observed.