Call for Proposals: Special Interest Groups
Special Interest Groups Chair: Hershel Safer, Dynamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Nes Ziona, Israel
We invite you to submit a proposal to organize a Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting at the ISMB/ECCB 2009 conference, which will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 27 - July 2, 2009.
A SIG meeting is a one- or two-day focused workshop. It should provide a broad and/or deep perspective on developments in a field of research, and is intended as a way to address a topic more extensively than can be done in the main conference.
Follow these links to see examples of previous SIG meetings:
ISMB 2008 (Toronto)ISMB/ECCB 2007 (Vienna)
ISMB 2006 (Fortaleza)
A Satellite Meeting is similar to a SIG meeting but has logistical or financial needs that do not fit conveniently into the SIG structure. Satellite Meeting proposals will be considered along with SIG proposals. SIG delegates will not be able to attend Satellite Meeting sessions and vice versa, and handout materials will be separate as well.
In order to facilitate conference organization, these deadlines will be adhered to strictly.
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SIG meetings will be held during the two days prior to the main conference: Saturday and Sunday, June 27-28, 2009. On the first day, SIGs will be held in parallel with the Student Symposium; on the second day, with tutorials.
We have approximately 14 room-days for SIGs. We may use them for 7 two-day meetings, 14 one-day meetings, or a combination. Each participant will register for a primary SIG but will be free to circulate between parallel sessions.
Several SIG meetings will be held during the main meeting. A proposal may indicate a preference for when its meeting should be held; we will try to respect these preferences but do not guarantee that all SIGs will receive their preferences.
SIG organizers are responsible for the scientific content of the SIG meeting. They may invite speakers, publish a call for submissions, or use a combination. They are expected to operate within the context of ISMB procedures, including finalizing the program and providing materials by the deadlines, working within the budget, etc.
Delegates to all SIG meetings will receive handouts from all SIG meetings, to facilitate movement between sessions. The handouts may be on a CD, in printed form, or both; this will be decided later.
Organizers will collect and prepare handout materials. They are responsible for ensuring that the material that they submit may be legally used and that appropriate copyright permissions have been arranged. Speakers are expected to grant permission to ISMB to copy and distribute these materials, including making them available for sale.
SIG organizers may host and maintain a SIG website.
Please pay particular attention to the deadlines for submitting the program of speakers and the handout materials (in electronic form). SIG participation is much more effective when delegates can view the schedules on the web ahead of the meeting and when they receive the handouts from all SIGs together.
ISCB will handle the logistics of holding the SIG meeting in conjunction with ISMB/ECCB 2009 and will take the financial risk for holding the meeting. This includes managing registration, promoting the meeting, preparing delegate handouts from the provided materials, providing a room and audio-visual services (Internet access, projector & screen, microphones, etc.), and supplying food.
Please review the ISCB/SIG Relationship document for more detailed information.
Please include the following sections in your proposal, in the indicated order. The entire proposal should be no more than four pages long.
- Title (up to 20 words, preferably worded to pique delegates' interest)
- Topic: Describe the field to be covered by the SIG meeting and its relevance for conference participants (about one page)
- Meeting details
- Duration (1 or 2 days)
- Preference for being scheduled before or in parallel with the main meeting (indicate if it does not matter)
- Expected sessions / topics, if possible with an explanatory paragraph about each
- Draft of time schedule for the day(s) of the meeting
- How presentations will be selected (invitation, call for submissions, etc.)
- Possible speakers (This is not required, but may add weight to the proposal-indicate speakers who have already agreed to participate.)
- Previous meetings of this or related SIGs, with attendance statistics
- List of special requests not covered in the ISCB/SIG Relationship document referenced above, noting if any request is essential to conducting the meeting (ISCB will try to be accommodating but cannot guarantee to supply specially-requested items). A Satellite Meeting proposal should explain why the meeting should be held as a Satellite Meeting instead of as a SIG.
- Potential sources of sponsorship for the meeting
- Information about organizers: For each organizer, include full name (including title), affiliation, e-mail and postal addresses, telephone numbers (work and cell, if available, including country and city codes), fax number, URL of home page, qualifications to organize this meeting
Proposals should be submitted in Acrobat (.pdf) format. Name the file using the family name of the first organizer (i.e., John Doe's proposal should be in a file named doe.pdf).
Submit proposals online by Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Proposals will be evaluated by a committee: Hershel Safer (chair), Toni Kazic, Jill Mesirov, and Erik Sonnhammer. The following criteria will be considered:
- Relevance and interest of the proposed program to ISMB/ECCB attendees
- Relevant expertise and experience of the organizers
- Effectiveness of the proposed SIG meeting organization
- Clarity, quality, and completeness of the proposal
Please contact sigs09@ismbconf.org with any questions.