Proposal of a text concerning the on site attendance to conferences

Conferences play an essential role in disseminating knowledge and establishing collaborations between researchers. In computer science, they are also, often ahead of journals, the main publication venues, and convey prestige. In practice, it is customary in the organisation of conferences to bind the meeting and publishing roles, and require authors to attend conferences in person.

However, systematically attending conferences can be problematic or challenging for several reasons (environmental impact, work/life balance, accessibility, etc.). At the same time, avoiding submitting to conferences induces a loss of chances, in particular in early stages of carreers. Several conference organizers (for example SoCG 2022, COLT 2022, ICALP 2022, ICDT 2023, FoSSaCS 2023, CSL 2023, STACS 2023 among others, see TCS4F link below) did not require mandatory on-site presentation of accepted papers. IRIF supports this policy and encourages all conference organizers to do the same.

Concretely, IRIF supports the choice of researchers to travel or not to a conference even though they have a paper accepted there. This support is regardless of the attendance policy of the event. In particular, such a support consists of

  making public this statement on the IRIF website and via social media;
  supporting researchers by sending letters of support to conference organizers;
  conditioning financial or logistic support to events agreeing with this policy, and providing all necessary support for implemnting it.

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TCS4F link: https://tcs4f.org/how-are-tcs-conferences-adapting-after-covid-19

Nous parlerons à nouveau du texte, ferons un bilan de la réunion avec les chefs d'équipes de la semaine dernière, et réfléchirons aux nouveaux sujets que nous souhaitons étudier.

Cette réunion a pour objectif de réunir les membres de l'IRIF pour échanger sur la situation du laboratoire en matière d'environnement et de proposer des changements.

Présentation des objectifs et de l'organisation de la commission.

Tous les membres du laboratoire sont conviés, à écouter, participer, proposer, et éventuellement s'engager.