If you are interested in organizing a special session, please follow the rules of special sessions organization below and contact Special Sessions Chairs Paulo Leitão (pleitao@ipb.pt) and Thomas Strasser (thomas.strasser@ait.ac.at). Please note the important dates for special session proposals.

Please use this template for Special Session proposals.

An individual can be (co‐)organizer of up to two Special Sessions.

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 sessions 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 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 judgement 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. During the review process, organizers must take into account that:

• An individual cannot be (co‐)author of more than two papers submitted to the same Special Session.
• Papers from organizers cannot exceed 60% of the contents of the Special Session.

A minimum of 5 accepted papers with authors from at least 3 independent institutions (other than the organizers institutions) and two different countries 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.