Call for Special Sessions

Call for Special Sessions

The 2022 IEEE International Smart Cities Conference will feature exciting keynotes, panels, tutorials, technical sessions, workshops and a series of Special Sessions. The 2022 edition of IEEE ISC2 invites and welcomes the Smart Cities communities to submit proposals for Special Sessions which should mandatorily include paper submission on a topic relevant to the conference areas and that does not overlap with already existent scientific tracks (examples include: Trust and ethics in Smart Cities; Governance, Urban Planning, Civic Engagement, Human Rights and Technologies). The Special Session intends to address current and future research and application topics, through experts in the field and may include, other than the paper presentation, discussions, and interactions among participants. If you intend to propose and organize a special session, please submit a proposal in EasyChair, using the provided template.

• Title of the Special Session
• A brief description of the area of concern (approx. 100 words), with
  special focus on why this is considered to be an interesting and significant topic.
• The name and contact information of two or more Special Sessions
  chairs, who are willing to promote and organize a sufficient amount of quality submissions to the Special Sessions. Please also indicate the short bio of the organizers.
• A list of potential authors and their affiliations
• A list of potential reviewers and their affiliations

Submission Guidelines

The organizer of the Special Session should access EasyChair with the role of author, choose “new submission” and then “Special Session Proposals”. The organizer should fill the required information and upload the proposal document according to the template that can be accessed in the conference webpage [Click here for the Template].

Special Session Organization

Once approved, it is the duty of the organizers to publicize the Special Session among researchers and practitioners in the field and attract a sufficient number of papers. Papers submitted to Special Session will undergo the same review process as regular papers. The Special Session chairs of the respective Special Session are responsible for organizing the review process, assuring at least three reviews per paper. This includes a selection of reviewers from their peers.

Before starting the review process, SS organizers must explicitly declare papers which present a conflict of interest for them. A conflict of interest arises where the judgment of a paper quality can be influenced by the organizers being authors or knowing some of the authors. To ensure independent reviews, this conflict must be marked as such in the submission system and the SS chairs notified so that they can arrange the review process.

A minimum of 5 accepted papers with authors from at least 3 independent institutions is required for each session. If a session has too few papers, accepted papers will be allocated to regular sessions wherever possible. In case of indication of weakly organized Special Sessions, the conference organizers will support the organizers with advice but reserve measures including cancellation of the respective Special Session. The quality of the accepted paper will be assured by the Technical Program Committee Chairs of ISC2 2022. The main organizer of the SS will be granted a free registration to attend the conference.

Important Times of Special Sessions Preparation

Contacts

Should you need further clarifications or have any inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact Special Sessions Co-Chairs:

• Sara Paiva, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Portugal (sara.paiva@estg.ipvc.pt)
• Mohamed Bahloul, International Energy Research Centre, Ireland (mbahloul@ierc.ie)