Report of ECSQARU 2013

Silja Renooij

Department of Information and Computing Sciences

Utrecht University

The twelfth edition of The European Conference on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty (ECSQARU) was held in Utrecht from the 7th until the 10th of July 2013. The main conference was preceded by a tutorial day, co-organised with the ISIPTA 2013 organisation. The focus of the ISIPTA conference is on imprecise probabilities, a topic which is rather unknown to the ECSQARU community, yet excellently fits into its scope. The purpose of the tutorial day was partly to build bridges between the ECSQARU and ISIPTA communities. ISIPTA 2013 was held in the week prior to ECSQARU in Compiègne, France; participants to both conferences could count on reduced conference fees and free bus transportation to Utrecht.

It was the first time in ten years that a tutorial day was planned the day before the main conference. The day was a great success: about half of the conference participants was present at the tutorials. Attendance was free for students of the SIKS research school. The four tutorial speakers and their subjects turned out to be a very good choice.

The main conference had a high quality and well thought-out scientific program. Each day was opened by an invited speaker – famous for his research in one of the ECSQARU areas of interest – which guaranteed a well-filled room early in the morning. On the first and last day, the four best student and non-student papers, respectively, were presented during plenary sessions. Two independent juries decided on the winners of the best paper awards, which were presented during the closing ceremony. The remaining part of the program consisted of 12 parallel sessions on varying subjects (see the conference website http://www.projects.science.uu.nl/ecsqaru/ for further details).

ECSQARU 2013 also offered a social program to allow for ample interaction between the participants. In addition to the coffee breaks, each day a lunch was offered in a nearby restaurant. On the first day, the participants enjoyed a short walking tour around the Dom church in Utrecht, followed by a welcoming reception in the church courtyard. The next day, the conference dinner was held at the ‘Oranjerie’ in Doorn.

Thanks to all the financial support we received, we have been able to offer a high quality conference for a reasonable fee, including a nice package deal for joint ISIPTA-ECSQARU participants; PhD students were offered a reduced registration fee (60% of the standard fee). Finally, we were able to invite interesting and renowned guest speakers and pay for their travel and stay. Our sponsors are acknowledged by placing their logos on the conference website and in the program booklet; sponsors are also explicitly mentioned in the conference proceedings published by Springer-Verlag (see http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-39091-3/).

ECSQARU 2013 has been a great success and was concluded with a standing ovation for the organisation. The weather and the venue – UtrechtUniversity’s University Hall – have certainly contributed to that.