Dear SIGCIS members

With the usual apologies for floating a possibility far too close to the deadline:

The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) is a two-yearly summit and showcase, aimed at the European science community and its "global partners", which leans particularly to the engagement of science and engineering with policymakers, business and public audiences and tends to be well covered by international science journalists.

The next meeting will be happening in Manchester (UK) from Friday 22 to Wednesday 27 July 2016, and the University of Manchester is keen to use its international networks to develop contributions. Formally, the ESOF definition of "science" extends to arts and humanities research of all kinds, although the opportunities are unsurprisingly particularly strong in fields connected to science, engineering and innovation. Full details are at
http://www.esof.eu/

One of the official themes is particularly close to SIGCIS community interests:

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Turing’s legacy - data and the human brain

In the city of Alan Turing we put forward a theme which combines his direct legacy in artificial intelligence and the interface of humans with machines, together with the wider issues posed by data, online information exchange and communication in our society. As major projects address the nature of the human brain and our ability to simulate it, we ask where this is taking us? In the world of big data, what is the significance of the new analytics for scientific and citizen activities? What ethical, social and legal challenges are raised? Communication and learning as a sub-theme opens up issues of human development.

Suggested issues to explore:

  • Artificial intelligence
  • Mapping the brain
  • Human-computer interface
  • Mathematical logic and computer science
  • Visualisation
  • Big data and behavioural analytics
  • Privacy, security, ethics and integrity
  • The future internet
  • The Internet of Things
  • Communication and learning
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-- while another theme, "Science in our cultures", has possibilities for the history and social studies of IT more broadly.

ESOF seeks speaker panels for relatively brief speaker sessions (75 minutes, can be doubled) and favours non-traditional formats. The challenge, as so often the case with this kind of meeting, is that there's a strong requirement for international participation ("the proposed speakers/participants within sessions should come from multiple countries and overall geographical balance will be sought in the programme") but no funding for travel or accommodation, so contributors would need to be self-supporting.

Is anyone interested in proposing or contributing to a session? If so, please send me details of a possible area of coverage, and I'll do my best to co-ordinate.

Submissions do not (as far as I can see) require detailed paper information, but the deadline for outline session abstracts is early on Monday morning (1 June), so I'd need to hear from you by Friday at the latest.

All best
James