ACM Europe Seasonal Schools Working Group

Mission

ACM Seasonal Schools focus on educating researchers on a general or specialized topic over the duration of one or two weeks (i.e., longer than other traditional meetings), and they involve a small number of students (typically, 50-100). As such, they provide a separate instrument for serving the computing community, achieving different goals from those of typical conferences and their various tracks and workshops. Usually, all students stay together in the same place, the venue of the School lectures, and ideally this is the case for all their instructors as well. This co-existence of everyone during lectures as well as social activities is important as it facilitates learning, the formation of groups that may continue to interact beyond the duration of the School, and connects upcoming researchers and other computing professionals with ACM.

The goal of the ACM Seasonal Schools Working Group is to design a regular Seasonal School program with a well-chosen portfolio, and implement it in a staged fashion in the years to come.

Call for Seasonal Schools

The Council will announce a Call for Seasonal School Proposals once or twice each year. The intention is to look for seasonal schools on new and emerging topics as well as continue well-established schools (that may become a series). In addition, some topics may be chosen top down, by the Council choosing a topic it thinks is important (and finding a person to run it) or choosing a person who works in a broad area (who would then find the particular topic within his/her area for a School). In any case, a seasonal school proposal will be submitted and evaluated by the Council.

A topic that has been successfully repeated a few times may lead to the establishment of a Seasonal School Series that will take on a life of its own, always under the ACM Europe umbrella, and continue yearly, with decreasing (and soon reaching zero) sponsorship from ACM. Even established Series will be evaluated each year, based on the educational and financial results of its last edition and the plans for the next one.

Participants: ACM Europe Seasonal Schools may address a wide range of researchers and professionals, including young researchers, MSc and Ph.D. students, engineers, senior researchers and professors, aiming for continuing education on hot topics.

Series Invariants: Unlike conferences, a Seasonal School Series may keep invariant one or more of its parameters: topic (which should be typically the case), main organizers, location, duration, etc.

Inclusion: Inclusion is a major principle of ACM together with gender and diversity balance. The schools should take this into consideration and be open internationally and attended by students coming also from very far away. The students typically fund their own travels. Schools might charge a modest registration fee but it is important to provide enough scholarships to allow for effective inclusion.

Working Group Members

Georgia Koutrika (Athena Research Center) (chair)

Angela Bonifati (Lyon 1 University)

Fabrizio Gagliardi (Barcelona Supercomputing Center)

Natasa Milic-Frayling (Intact Digital)

Enrico Nardelli (University of Roma "Tor Vergata")

Call for Proposals 2024

ACM Europe Council Seasonal Schools

ACM Europe Seasonal Schools focus on educating researchers on a general or specialized topic over the duration of one or two weeks and involve a small number of students. Usually, students stay together in the same place, and ideally this is the case for all their instructors as well. The co-existence of everyone during lectures as well as social activities is important as it facilitates learning, the formation of groups that may continue to interact beyond the duration of the school.