Guidelines for the Scientific organizing committee (SOC)

These guidelines provide a preliminary description of the SOC role and duties. It refers to the Deadlines & Milestones posted on the web page.

SOC Membership

The EPSC-DPS2019 SOC is composed of two chairs, two co-chairs, and members.

The chairs/co-chairs are Maria Cristina De Sanctis (Chair), Joe Spitale (Chair), Frank Sohl (Co-chair) and Devon Burr (Co-chair).

Ex-officio members of the SOC are the EPSC Executive Committee chair (Jean-Pierre Lebreton), the DPS chair (Linda Spilker), and the Europlanet Coordinator (Nigel Mason).

Members: Programme Group coordinators

The Programme Group coordinators must identify one point of contact for each PG who will participate in the SOC telecon when required.

Role and responsibilities of the PG coordinators

• Session programme finalization (06–19 February 2019):
  • Finalization of their own PG sessions, ensuring a proper session description and adequate session conveners (considering also diversity of gender, nationality/institutes and career stage).
  • Support the SOC chairs in harmonizing the sessions across the PG (session merging, session transfer across PG, converting session proposals into workshops, etc…)
  • Participate in SOC telecons if one is organized by SOC chairs


• Call for abstracts (20 February–08 May): Monitoring and encouraging session conveners to solicit abstracts


• During the Convener Part 1 (SOI) & Part 2 (SOII) (09 May–22 May): Monitor and coordinate convener activities


• During PCI/PCII/PCIII (SOC Part 1, SOC Part 2, and SOC Part 3) (23 May–3 July):
  • Monitor, support and coordinate conveners activities. Make decisions as appropriate at PG level. Identify open points at PG level that need to be settled at SOC level.
  • Participate in SOC coordination telecons as required by SOC chairs.

We expect you to ensure that participation in your Programme Group is diverse and representative of the whole research community. A minimum of two conveners for each session is recommended, to limit bias when selecting chairpersons, inviting and reviewing abstracts and selecting contributors. You should ensure sessions balance gender, career age and nationality and are organized without disadvantage to any potential participant. All PG coordinators, conveners and co-conveners are expected to abide by the EPSC Code of Conduct.

The Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer provides the tools required to assist you in the fulfilment of your duties.