ICST Steering Committee

The ICST Steering Committee actively solicits proposals for future conferences. As stated in the charter, we desire to have conferences planned at least two years in the future. Competing proposals will be evaluated on strategic as well as tactical criteria. The primary strategic criterion is based on geography-an explict ICST goal, as encoded in the charter, is to locate the conference in geographically diverse locations.

The rest of this document describes specific points the steering committee would like to see addressed in a proposal. We also outline general goals for some of these points. Addressing them is especially important when competing proposals are submitted to the SC.

• Charter : It is essential that proposers read the ICST charter before putting together the proposal. ICST has a strong charter with rules that need to be followed rigorously.
• General Chair : All proposals must identify a general chair. The general chair should have good standing in the field of testing, verification and validation, should have prior involvement in ICST, and should have experience organizing conferences. ICST is sponsored by the IEEE, so prior experience with IEEE conferences is very beneficial. It is perfectly fine to have co-General Chairs.
• Program Chair : All proposals must identify a program chair. It is common practice to have two co-program chairs to distribute the load and to provide a more diverse collection of experience. The program chair (or chairs) must have a strong technical reputation in the field of testing, verification and validation and must have been involved with prior ICST conferences.
  When necessary, the SC will facilitate getting future GCs and PCs involved in ICST conferences as members of the technical program committee. The proposal should highlight previous experience with ICST and previous experience in organizing other conferences.
• Other Organizers : When possible, it will help a proposal to identify other members of the organizing committee. Identifying one or more industrial track chairs will be especially helpful.
• Location : The location of the conference is essential to any proposal. The SC will try to locate the conference in different locations; regularly locating in North America, Europe, and Asia.
• Venue : Information about the venue will indicate advance planning and will help the SC. ICST 2008 had 220 attendees and 3 tracks, so it is important that the venue be able to handle this load.
• Travel : ICST attracts a world-wide audience, and convenience of travel, including local teavel, will be considered, specifically for attendees from other continents.
• Corporate Involvement : ICST emphasizes a strong industry-academic connection. If the proposal could address plans for involving industry (especially local) to the conference, either throgh sponsorship or attendees, that would be helpful.
• Budget Information : Conferences have been getting more expensive and ICST has conflicting goals. The IEEE expects the conference to not lose money (and prefers ICST to make a profit), while at the same time we want to keep attendance of the conference affordable for young scientists and students. Preliminary information about costs of registration, hotel and local expenses are important to evaluate a proposal.
• Program Information : Any information about the planned program, particularly plans beyond the expected technical and industry tracks, should be provided.

The ICST SC reserves the right to ask for changes in a proposal, including asking for more information, recommendating changes to the organizing committee, requesting the proposal to wait for a later year, and in the case of strong competing proposals, suggesting proposals be combined.