Message from the ECC14 IPC Chair

“Bienvenue à Strasbourg!”
On behalf of the International Program
Committee (IPC) and the Vice-Chairs Frank
Allgöwer (Invited Sessions), Antonio Bicchi (EU
Projects), Antonella Ferrara (Tutorial Sessions),
Wilfrid Perrruquetti (French National Projects),
Henk Nijmeijer (Workshops), I wish to address to
you a warm welcome to Strasbourg for the
“milésime 2014” of the European Control
Conference (ECC).

The technical program includes three Plenary Lectures (one per day), six
semi-plenaries (two per day), eight Invited Sessions, nine Tutorial
Sessions (by invitation), four pre-conference workshops (including the
one organized by Mathworks and opened to all the participants) as well
as three lunch sessions (one per day).

Concerning the submitted papers, 735 contributions have been

submitted as “Regular Papers”, 68 as contributions in “Invited Sessions”
(12 “Invited Sessions” Proposals) and, finally, 31 as contributions in 9
“Tutorial Sessions”. The 803 papers submitted as regular or as
contributions in “Invited Sessions” followed the same “two-step”
reviewing process. In the first step (complete by the end of January), all
submitted papers were assigned by the CEB Chair, Thomas Parisini to
the 97 CEB “Associate Editors”, who collected 2.291 reviews and made
their own recommendation. The second step involved the Program
Chair and some of the Vice-Chairs, as well as the 29 members of the
International Program Committee (IPC).

All papers submitted in the context of Invited Sessions (“Invited

Papers”), as well as the Proposals themselves, were handled by Frank
Allgöwer (Program Vice-Chair), who, based on the CEB evaluations and
feedback, made suggestions on the session proposals as well as on the
specific composition of accepted sessions—including in one case, some
specific transfers between sessions. For some particular “Special”
Invited Sessions (related to French National Projects and European
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Projects), the decision process also involved the corresponding Vice-
Chairs, Wilfrid Perruquetti (National Projects) and Antonio Bicchi (EU
Project). At the end, eight invited sessions have been accepted and
among them two “special” invited sessions devoted to (French ANR)
National Projects.

All the other papers (“Regular Papers”) were processed by the members
of the IPC, by taking into account the CEB feedbacks and evaluations. In
this context, a special attention has been paid to a reduced number of
“Regular Papers” (about 20) considered by the Associated Editors of the
CEB as “critical case” papers. These papers have been further examined
by IPC members before a final decision was made. In both cases (Invited
Papers and Regular Papers), the IPC member in charge had full access to
the reviews and recommendations of referees and CEB members—but
not to their identity. Finally, 484 contributions have been accepted and
the overall acceptation rate is 60,27% (484/803).

Next, for the Tutorial Sessions, Antonella Ferrara has taken care of
evaluating the proposals by involving some members of the IPC and the
corresponding reviewing process was done in parallel with the decision-
making process for the so-called “flagged” papers.

For the pre-conference workshops, from the initial (seven) submitted

proposals, only five have been selected. The selection process involved
the Vice-Chair Henk Nijmeijer (who made suggestions on the proposals),
the General Chair, Carlos Canudas-de-Wit, the Local Arrangement Chair,
Edouard Laroche, myself and in some particular cases the organizers of
the proposed workshops.

Similarly to the previous ECC (Zürich, July 2013), the competition for the
“Best Student Paper Award” was of high-level. This year, 25 papers
whose lead author was a graduate student at the time of submission
have been submitted for such an award. A small committee formed by
some members of the IPC has done a first pre-selection and the criteria
that have been considered are the reviews that the papers received as
well as the nomination letter. The corresponding list was “transferred”
(no loss and no delays in the loop) to Rodolphe Sepulchre, Award Chair.
The winner of the award will be selected during the conference among

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these 5 finalist papers and will be announced at the conference
banquet.

Finally, Thomas Parisini (CEB Chair) was “le-grand-maître-à-bord” for

the entire process. He played a key role in all phases of the process. His
“4-ties” (reactivity, accuracy, efficiency, availability) have been fully
appreciated by the whole Program Committee from the beginning to
the end. “Grazie mille, Thomas!”

Best wishes to all for a pleasant conference at Strasbourg!

Silviu-Iulian NICULESCU
IPC Chair, ECC 2014