Scientific Activities Committee Recommendations for IAC Organization

Transcription

1 INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF ASTRONAUTICS Secretariat: 6, rue Galilée, Paris Phone: Fax: sgeneral@iaaweb.org Web Site As of 10 January 2007 Scientific Activities Committee Recommendations for IAC Organization Preamble Dr. Madhavan Nair, Vice-President Scientific Activity suggested during the 97 th Session of the Board of Trustees held in Valencia October 3 rd 2006 that the 6 commissions as well as the Valencia program committees be consulted within one month after the Board meeting, their responses circulated to the Board of Trustees for review so that by mid-december a SAC response be elaborated and given to the participants and the organizations. The consultation of the Trustees was excellent but took longer than expected. The final version was ready on January 9 th 2007 and circulated accordingly. Statement The IAC is jointly organized and performed by the organisations IAF, IAA and IISL. The frame of the Congress must reflect this in different aspects: The Congress program must clearly identify the contributions by the different organisations A statement should be given by the Presidents in the IAC program why they jointly organize the Congress The Opening Ceremony with several hundreds of participants should see this partnership The IPC must have members of the three organisations in adequate weight ratio. In the following we concentrate only on the role of IAA at IAC and the connection between IAA and IAF, noting that same consideration is recommended with IISL. Maintain two identities In order to keep teams motivated (at IAF and IAA) a return to clear identification of IAA sponsored or co-sponsored sessions in the IAC program is mandatory and must be visible in the printed program of the Congress. This must be done immediately while conserving the current structure of the IAC program. Plenary Events

2 IAA should make a strong contribution to the plenary events by making its own proposal and/or being strongly involved in the selection process. Therefore IAA visibility will be improved and the IAC program will benefit from this contribution. Coordination between Secretariats For Congress activities the IAA Secretariat must well interface with IAF Secretariat and vice versa. There should be regular meetings before the Congress to ensure that IAA Sessions, meetings and other aspects are focused and "not forgotten" or to avoid overlapping of different activities.

3 IPC The IPC has about 350 members which is too large to operate efficiently. It is recommended that the two co-chairs need an IPC Executive Bureau with identified and officially known members empowered by their organisation with voting rights. The Commission Chairs, IAA Secretary General and the IAF Managing Director should become members of IPC Steering group and being part of the IPC Executive Bureau. IAA presence as such at the IPC meeting appears mandatory. IPC, being responsible for the technical side of IAC, should be equally represented by IAA and IAF. Terms of Reference for the IPC should clarify this procedure. Once the IAC program structure is established by consensus the IPC Steering Group or co-chairs or IPC Executive Bureau (only one of them) have to delegate to the IAA commissions the conduct of IAA sessions preparation. SAC does arbitrations among IAA commissions and IPC Steering Group does arbitrations between IAA and IAF leaded proposed sessions. Reducing overlapping In case of overlapping themes, session chairs should be encouraged to mutually agree on joint IAA/IAF sessions, in order to make maximum use of the potential synergy of both bodies but keeping the minimum number of IAA sessions unchanged. This minimum number of IAA sessions should be fixed to 36, including joint sessions with IAF and IISL. Interface with Acta Astronautica Publications A strict go-no-go deadline to upload IAC papers must be mutually decided (at 8 days before the congress for instance) to allow the session chairs to see the papers in advance. Authors without uploaded papers must be informed that they will not be allowed to present their paper and will not be considered for publications. By the last day of the IAC, the rapporteur s recommendations must be delivered to the IAA Secretariat at the congress. Perception in the Media If the sources of the sessions are visible in the program, no special additional actions for changes in the schedule need to be taken except for urgent situations. And in such cases the IAA Secretariat needs to be informed immediately. Perception among Congress Participants If we judge by the important number of yearly nomination from the IAC community for individual IAA membership, there is no issue of the Academy perception among congress participants. Financial Aspects There were many recommendations to decrease the high cost of registration (as some in the aerospace community did, such as ICAS which recently decided to decrease its registration cost of 20%). The conference fees are very high and this discourages many potential participants. In particular for the Hyderabad congress, this

4 could help offset otherwise lower attendance and markedly increase diversity of representation at the conference. For basic scientific researchers working in universities, a lower registration fee should be offered. One thing that appears to be necessary is a deeper level in future discussions on a detailed understanding of the overall budget for these congresses, containing both income and distribution of funds. Action Items IAA ) IPC # Establish an IPC Executive Bureau # Outline Terms of Reference for IPC including membership regulations 2.) IAC Papers # Install go-no-go procedure for IAC presentations and publications 3.) Perception in Media and Public Appearance # Modification of the Opening Session to demonstrate that IAC is a joint IAF, IAA and IISL congress # Clear identification in the IAC printed program of IAF, IAA, IISL and joined contributions 4.) IAF - IAA - IISL Interaction # Establish a formal secretariat interaction plan for IAC which is repetable for every congress # IPC co-chairs should become ex-officio members of IAA-SAC

5 IAA recommendations for IAC Organization Appendix 1 Note from Prof. H-P Roeser, Vice-Chair of the IAA Scientific Activities Committee

6 UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART INSTITUTE OF SPACE SYSTEMS Director: Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Roeser IRS Pfaffenwaldring 31 D Stuttgart Germany Prof. Dr. Edward C. Stone President of IAA And Dr. Madhavan G. Nair Vice-President Scientific Activities Phone +49-(0) Fax +49-(0) Your letter Your reference Our reference Contant Stuttgart, _ ecs@srl.caltech.edu chairman@isro.gov.in CC: mys@sac.isro.gov.in; sgeneral@iaaweb.org Dear Ed, Dear Dr. Nair, As already personally expressed to you I am concerned about the influence and the visibility of IAA at IAC. In this respect the International Programme Committee (IPC) plays a key role. Here, I would like to make some preliminary comments on experiences in preparation for the IAC in Valencia and Hyderabad followed by some recommendations: Statement: IPC is a body of IAC but formed by IAF, IAA and IISL representatives. IPC consists of two IPC Co-Chairs who are backed-up by about 350 Steering Committee members. The IAA SAC has given me the mandate to represent SAC at the IPC for all activities of the Academy. There is no formal way to inform the IPC Co-Chairs about my nomination; this should be formalized. I recommend that the IAA Secr. General (+ IAF Executive Director too) and IAA Commission Chairs should become a member of the IPC as well. There is no Charter or Terms of Reference for the IPC, except one page of information on IPC on the IAF webpage (see attached). The IPC Co-Chairs do not know who - by name and by function - is on the committee and there is no information about the length of the membership term. Therefore sometimes I am on the distribution list and sometimes not. I recommend that the IPC membership must be formal and consequently known in advance to an IPC meeting. I recommend distinguishing between a member and a guest of IPC. It is not clear who has a right to vote and who can only make recommendations. Sometimes participants show up at IPC meetings and make decisions for the programme, without being a member of IPC. I recommend that the decision process of IPC should be clarified and streamlined.

7 IPC Meetings should not be in competition to any IAA, IAF and IISL general meeting I recommend that the two IPC Co-Chairs should be made ex-officio members of the IAA SAC. I recommend that the large IPC should have an IPC Executive Bureau with identified persons and empowered by their organisation with voting rights; decisions should be taken at different meetings at a different time. I also recommend that there should be a symmetry for IISL too I would suggest that the IAA should do something to improve the situation because it will certainly strengthen our influence and probably will improve the quality of the IAC. Please take my comments as a personal input for improving our image in the public and take them as a suggestion. Best regards Yours sincerely Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Roeser

8 IAA recommendations for IAC Organization Appendix 2 Compilation by Dr. J-M Contant, Secretary of the IAA Scientific Activities Committee From internal survey to IAA Commissions members and IAA Program Committee members

9 INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF ASTRONAUTICS Scientific Activity Committee (SAC) Internal Survey Report Paris, 20 November 2006 On the occasion of the Board of Trustees meeting held Tuesday 3 rd 2006 in Valencia, Spain, it was decided that the Scientific Activities Committee (SAC) of the Academy will conduct a brief internal survey among the IAA commissions and the key Academicians involved in the Academy sessions or joint sessions of the IAC Valencia. The purpose of this survey was to collect suggestions and comments on how to increase the value of the congress through for instance improving its organization and after a review by the Board of Trustees, to provide this report to the IAF-IAA group as a view of the Academy about the IAC. All Academy commissions and Program Committees 2006 were solicited. Around 50 persons responded within the delay. Synthesis about responses is presented below with only the comments relevant to the solicited questions. M. Nair Vice-President

10 1- Comments about your recent experience on the conduct of your symposia/sessions at IAC Valencia. 1.1 Comments on the Program Globally Very Positive: G. Brachet: I enjoyed good attendance (in fact, better than expected) and a good quality of most presentations. The number of no-shows was lower than average. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the success of the symposium. J. Dorado: I must declare my satisfaction by the good results achieved at Valencia P. Finarelli: The policy session organized by John Logsdon and Serge Plattard was excellent. Good distribution of perspectives and information. R. Holdaway: Sessions were well run and well attended. R. Hornstein: Technical program was excellent; Statistics show high-level of author and audience attendance. S. Hovland: In general the session went well, no no-shows. N. Johnson: Symposium well attended and author attendance was high. The quality of the presentations, including the use of short animations and videos, was excellent. Useful dialogs were established during the question-and-answer period with opportunity for the exchange of related reports, papers, and studies. N. Kanas: Very Good. Disappointments to not have more submissions from European and Asian scientists, but those papers that we did have, were well received. O. Liepack: The session went extremely well. The topic (Spain s contribution to spaceflight) was of interest to all participants, whether they were students, full participants or retired colleagues. D. Moura: Still a lot of overlapping between too numerous sessions. X. Pasco: Generally, the experience was positive with a rather sustained interest for the topics of the session. M. Rao: Successful for completion and good focus was achieved. R. Sandau: The Small Satellite Symposium had a large attendance and seems to be good attractor of IAC. K-U Schroegl: Symposium (including the Scientific-Legal Roundtable) went very well. S. Shostak: Greater number of presented papers than average and a much higher level of quality. The attendance averaged 50/60 people, showing that SETI is of interest to other IAC participants. N. Smirnov: Symposia of the Category A (Science and Exploration) / Commission 1 (Space Physical Sciences) were exceptionally successful T. Yasaka: Well organized 1.2 General Comment on the IAC Facilities not Meeting the Requirements: Valencia venue was very spread out it was not an ideal location and the fact that the main building was also open to the general public was unsatisfactory. Accommodations for conduct of sessions were poor and not up-to-standard. The rooms were small. Outside temporary facilities were not meeting the requirements and not suitable for the authors to present their papers or for the audience to fully participate; loud air-conditioner noise and room was not cooled; could hear session in adjoining room; spotlights were distracting to audience; podium was dark. There was much grumbling about this, and we would have had a larger audience if more salubrious. A whole crowd of noisy students were shouting and cheering in the student booth which was between the meeting rooms. The large distance between the two groups of meeting rooms made it very difficult to move between sessions to listen to different papers Presentations: Some more improvements Not all presentations were loaded into the computer prior to the session. Several speakers wanted to use their own computers or memory sticks. This is a fact of life and IAC must recognize this. Several presentations were loaded via USB sticks just before and during the

11 session. This introduced a virus onto the PC which later got transferred to several USB sticks. Better control of uploading is recommended. The fact that papers, and then presentations, could be uploaded till the day of the session (not before 15 September as stated in instructions) made it difficult to exactly determine if a paper was going to be given or not. Difficult to prepare as session chair, if you have not seen the paper before the session! Some presentations which were delivered late did not correspond 100 % with the abstract submitted. Recommend that all presentations must be submitted prior to the session to allow a review by the session chairs w.r.t. content Posters: rather difficult experience The poster sessions were located at a too large distance to allow frequent visits. The conduct of posters was unclear and the posting of the papers much too late. There were two interactive poster sessions taking place in the same room at the same time and unknown to each chairman. However, turnout was very low for the interactive poster sessions and very few people actually turned up to the posters being displayed afterwards in a different location The poster was not set up in time, The poster was supposed to be composed after four slides (excellent idea) but these slides were to be vertical to fit with the place, but appeared reduced at the projection and uneasily readable. Nobody kept his presentation within the four minutes allowed so there was no real "poster session" near the poster. Where is the 'interactivity? Neither the chairmen nor the rapporteur attended the session, because there was a meeting of the committee at the same time The consequence of that is that the paper had no chance to be considered for publication in "Acta Astronautica". With this "poster approach", I have lost a lot of time in preparation just to take part to a second class process Program Documents: This year too many mistakes There were errors in the Final Program (big book and small pamphlet) that made it difficult for attendees to identify their sessions of interest. For the Academy program, the schedule of events was totally wrong and on Sunday the one of last year (Board of Trustees meeting, regular meeting, etc) and in total contradiction with the Academy calendar of events Cost of the IAC Registration too high Good science, but dreadful facilities. I paid an exorbitant $800 for 2 days of meetings, which might have been OK if the facilities had been good, but instead our sessions took place in a metal hut with inadequate air-conditioning, resulting in temperatures and a noise level which were almost unbearable. It was well below the standard expected of even a budget conference. I certainly wouldn t have attended if I d known it was going to be like that. I doubt whether I will attend the next one unless there is a commitment to provide better facilities at a lower cost. The registration fee is getting ridiculously high Observations or lessons learnt Comments on the program were very positive. Facilities were not meeting the requirements. Presentations needed some more improvements. Posters sessions were a rather difficult experience. Congress program documents were having too many mistakes. 2- Comments/suggestions on enhancing the quality of the contents and presentations and increasing the attendance of future IAC. Goals and Strategy What is the priority? Increase the attendance? Why? Increase the quality of the paper? Why? Increase the quality of the paper because it is a way to increase the audience? Under this question is another one: what are the characteristics of the IAC? What do we want it to be, and why? IAF, IAA and IISL should conduct strategic discussions and analysis about the IAC goals and benefits. Is 5,000 participants the ultimate goal? Is this goal driven by money, promoting space? Is the IAC large size the only way of making money or the only way of

12 touching humanity? Is there any limit to the size growth and the time available (parallel session, parallel committee meetings, parallel social events) during one week time? Partner organizations (IAA and IISL) should be financially interested in the number of participants. If IAC wants to remain really international it is important to keep the number of sessions and participants consistent with the capacity of accommodation of most countries. It should deal with all aspects of space, including, laws, art, education, and all time expiries (history, present, near future, mid-term, far future). Papers concerning society, new missions and new ideas, and what are the policies and plans of various countries or industries are important, even when they are not of a top technical level. Plenary sessions are of the utmost importance. The exhibition also is very important. Overall Increased attendance not necessary (already on the limit). 2.1 Enhancing the quality of the contents Congress Theme and sessions Themes IAC annual theme chosen by the Local Host Society is never translated in the session themes. The IPC and the Commissions/SAC are working regardless of the theme which appears as a useless addendum. A special action should be taken to invite or force the symposia/sessions to take into account the annual theme. The focus of the IAC must be on bringing value of each Congress to its Members and making them wanting to attend the Congress. Every member has his own perspective - if we can sew as many of these perspectives into the main focus then a larger set of Members will see value. This will require for a Strategic Approach at Congress Planning rather than a Sessionic Approach Role of the Chairs Quality Session related to a small but always present community. The publicity (demand of abstract submission) is mainly made by the chairs. Session chairs/symposium coordinators must be recalled that they have to be fairly proactive in selecting topical themes and encouraging people to participate Session Session chairs need to enforce presentation and Q&A time limits better. This is an issue of professionalism and courtesy to both speakers and audience members. Too many sessions end with the later speakers not having time to make their presentation fully, and the audience short-changed in being able to ask questions Presentations The presentations could be reviewed prior to the session by the chairs if they are available (impose a deadline for presentation uploading). It would be nice to present more documents, such as movies. But this would exceed the allocated time of 15 minutes per presenter and imply a modulated time allocation Papers Quality Overall US papers and US participation suffer from ITAR. The quality of the contents and the presentation being diverse with a generally good level but with some accompanying presentation somewhat general or superficial, it should be useful to conduct a post congress analysis to track superficial speakers and establish a red list shared by IAA, IAF and IISL. Presentations very elaborated and informative should be identified in a list shared by IAA, IAF and IISL as well as their authors for future reference. We must be better prepared to refuse proposed papers if the abstracts are of low quality no matter how good the title or how important the author might be Speakers Rules Enforcement The Space Debris Symposium has established the compilation of a list of authors with oral presentations, chairs, and rapporteurs who are not present to fulfill their obligations. Individu-

13 als with multiple absences should be counseled and a red list shared by IAF IAA and IISL established. Organizations which repeatedly withdraw support for authors should be identified and shared by IAF IAA and IISL Poster Sessions Poster papers continue to present a challenge in terms of author delivery, quality, format, and display. In general, insufficient attention is given to IAC poster papers; hence, authors are less inclined to satisfy their commitments. The inauguration in Valencia of special sessions for poster paper authors to provide overviews of their work in the technical session rooms was not as successful as desired. Time allocation should be revisited since too much time was allocated for too few authors. Rapporteur should make recommendations for publication in Acta Astronautica as transaction notes (short publications for short paper). To reduce the number of no-shows for the posters it should be good to reduce the number of planned poster sessions. Option to allow a short introduction to each poster during a one-hour session was received with interest by many participants. Suggestion made to introduce one type of presentations: oral-interactive, which would be shorter oral presentations combined with successive poster discussion. That would allow accommodating more papers and providing equal rights to the participants. Time allocation for presentations let be the responsibility of Symposia chairs Call for Papers Have more slots for scientific papers. To get good papers does mean re-inventing the usual sessions having different themes and topics and thus giving people the opportunity to present something new or, better, to have completely different speakers Reducing overlapping To avoid overlapping, promote joint serial sessions between symposia such as double sessions during a full day. This particular Congress had many deficiencies both technically and organizationally. A much better coordination between IAF, IAA, IISL and Local organizers would have been useful in making this Congress very effective and achieve its objectives more successfully. Both were trying to achieve their organizational/perspective objectives which were also achieved but the overall objective of an integrated Congress was not found. It looked like smaller Congresses under one main Umbrella 2.2 Increasing the attendance of future IAC Since most people may only attend the congress, when they also deliver a paper, we cannot be too rigorous with the selection. However, in many fields, quality remains to be high and reaction has been good. Overall the congress does not leave too much time to get some insight into other areas Packaging the congress Increasing the attendance in IAC must be a major objective this will happen if valueperspective is sold and many Members feel that the Congress has been technically excellent, organizationally brilliant, commercially successful and business-wise opportunistic. Packaging the Congress will be required in this changing scenario Symposia and Sessions Themes If we continue to select session themes according to the topical interests to the astronautical community, we should be able to maintain the good record of the IAA sessions Invited Papers IAF, IAA and IISL should unite, coordinate, formally invite and recognize more active participation of important institutions and Industries and encourage them to present papers of high interest.

14 2.2.4 Open to new countries Obviously IAC congresses taking place in Europe enjoy a much larger participation. The US participation is, once more, quite disappointing. It would be useful to conduct a study as to why so few US participants bother to attend the IAC. Also, participation from the developing nations should be encouraged, as representation from e.g. Africa was almost nil, while countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa have now a real space programme. Maybe a dedicated plenary event to these new space faring countries should be envisaged? In order to get larger participation from other world regions (Africa, South America) we would need "anchor-persons" there. This could be task for the Academy to find them i.a. through other regional Academies, related areas close to space Room size Some meeting rooms could not have taken many more people. The IAC lessons learned are not used to evaluate the number of attendees to each session and provide larger meeting rooms for the sessions showing particular interest Registration fees Decrease the exorbitant cost of registration. Provide travel funds for scientists from Eastern Block countries. The conference fees are still very high and this discourages many people, especially if they have to pay it out of their own pocket. Maybe the IAF should pick up more of the tab from the fees of its corporate members after all it is the companies and agencies that benefit as much as any from a good turnout and attendance. For some IAC, eg Bremen, ESA did organize a special conference fee for all staffs who were attending. Maybe this is something that could be pursued with ESA (and other organizations) for all IACs. One important aspect is the high cost of registration fee that this is limiting attendance mainly from a large part of Developing Economies who find it difficult to pay such high Reg Fee. In fact, the IAA Model of Regional Conferences (like the one in India) where Reg fee is much lower seemed to be quite appreciative to many Asian participants. Content and quality of the presentations is largely within the purview of, the registrations costs are invariably the subject of complaint. The biggest obstacle to success in these endeavours is the very high cost of attending the IAC. In particularfor the Hyderabad IAC only, this could help offset otherwise lower attendance and markedly increase diversity of representation at the conference. High registration fees will be especially difficult for potential Indian Congress attendees, given the currency exchange rate. The registration fee is too much expensive to participate in the congress for basic scientific researchers working in university in which the budget is becoming lower and lower. Is there not any way to settle more reasonable registration fee? Publications The providing of the CD, the plan to transform into e-files the papers from the previous congress, the enhancement of the Acta Astronautica diffusion are very good improvements that increases the interest to publish at IAC. Idem, Acta Astronautica could select more papers, but keeping a top level quality Observations or lessons learnt Enhancing the quality of the contents could be achieved by having IPC and the Commissions/SAC are working closer to the congress theme, enforcing the rules for presentations, and the role of the chairs, revisiting the poster sessions, establishing clear rules for overlapping management, opening congress to new countries. 3- Comments/suggestions about improving the selection process of your symposia/ sessions (including themes, new ideas, number of sessions and selection of chairs).

15 Selection process refined along years The present system works quite well. Standard selection procedure and templates could be given to all session chairs to aid in the selection process. The Space Debris Symposium has been a fixture of IAC for approximately 20 years. The symposium has earned a reputation for both excellence and relevance. During this period, the symposium organizers have developed a very efficient system for soliciting chairs and selecting papers. For many years the symposium has sponsored four technical sessions. In keeping with the desire expressed last year by IAC to reduce the number of overall technical sessions, only three technical sessions are planned for the IAC2007 Space Debris Symposium. This decision seems appropriate for the venue in However, the high level of interest and new work in space debris might dictate that a return to four technical sessions is justified. This works well in Commission 6. We have set up a Web forum where members can post notices about proposed sessions and study groups and make comments. We also have a twice-yearly online session where members vote on these issues. Selection Process of IAC for papers is quite good as it is a Commission/Committee System and considerable efforts are put in evaluating. IAA Sessions are focused and bring good technical character and discussions. Selection process seems well balanced now. Along with paper selection session chairs should also perform time allocation for each presentation. Stricter Rules To reduce the amount of workload on individuals, do not appoint the same person to act as chairperson or co-chair at several sessions. There should be enough volunteers to provide dedicated people to each session. Giving a paper in its own session as Chair or Rapporteur should be strictly prohibited. Need to ensure all presentations are state-of-the-art. Today too many substandard abstracts submitted, and not enough attention paid to rejecting papers that offer nothing new. Status reports should be harmonized among presenters. There were several almost identical presentation made by different groups at the Valencia conference, e.g. the future launchers of Europe presented by several industrial teams. The IAC should try to merge these when the abstracts come in. The selection process of the history & contribution of the hosting country works fine. To improve the quality of papers the ration between submitted abstracts and accepted papers must be at least in the order of 3 to 2. (Sometimes it is 1 to 1). Sessions Renewal Last year new themes were added according to new ideas and chair/rapporteur positions changed accordingly. Again: If we continue to select session themes according to the topical interests to the astronautical community, we should be able to maintain the good record of the IAA sessions. The wording describing the session content should mandatory change of at least 25% to each symposium every year according the last achievements/failures, location of the IAC, etc. The Symposium Chairs, session chairs, rapporteurs should mandatory rotate according a three year term in order to revamp naturally the session. There should be a general routine for selecting new chairs and rapporteurs. Too many persons are happy to be chairmen of sessions or rapporteur and don't express any criticism because they think it would be considered as useless or even daring. Space and global security is a good topic. Suggestion to select more targeted issues sessions related to security (maritime security, civil security applications, space surveillance) per year instead of keeping a wide-open security theme. There is a lack of papers from Developing Countries (Africa, Asia, S America etc). Can an effort be specially made to have a congress addressing their needs? Symposium/Session should be examined every year apart from IAF Committee, so that copying of previous program could be avoided. Keeping Better Flexibility It would be very useful to have the option of increasing number of sessions as late as the Spring IPC meeting in Paris, based on the number of strong proposals received for papers. The IAA web side should offer the opportunity of introducing new themes and ideas for each

16 commission. In its March meeting they should evaluate the inputs and if adequate include them in the process of defining new symposia and sessions. The old ones should be examined on their merits. Securing Presence of Experts from Large Organizations IAA could make a greater pitch to organizations like ESA to say how important is involvement of their staff in organizing sessions. Although the ESA DG and some directors are aware of the importance of the IAA and the IAC, this sentiment does not filter down through the hierarchies. Quite often experts are not allowed to attend the IAC because the policy in some directorates is either to send only heads of divisions or people who have never been to the IAC before. Consequently experts have to make protestations and justifications as to why they should attend. The fact that an ESA staff is a symposium coordinator or co-chair or an IAA Commission officer and will have been instrumental in putting together sessions (choosing and inviting speakers etc) is not a guarantee that he will be allowed to go to the IAC and actually chair his sessions. ESA decision as to who can attend the IAC is often left to very late in the process (1 or 2 months). It would surely help if the IAA were to give ESA (and other organizations) a list of those IAA members who worked for ESA and who were actively involved in IAA activities, as part of their work, and ensure that the Agency recognized this involvement as a matter of policy. A request should also be made that this involvement should be made known to all directors and department heads. Overlapping Certain confusion arises from the fact that the same topics are presently addressed in different symposia. Even if it is raging for the symposia that are so "challenged", and result in a leak of energy and impact, it cannot be completely suppressed because it permits to enlarge the authors and the public for the topic. COSPAR comparison I never really understood the process of soliciting and the building up the IAC program. It appears to me that this is a self-perpetuating process run by insiders and not a bottom up approach as in COSPAR where the community provides input and eager volunteers play a key role in organizing the session once approved by the responsible overseeing body. Observations or lessons learnt Improving the selection process of symposia/ sessions can be achieved by making gradual small changes rather than major changes in contradictory directions, renewal percentage goals, flexibility, introducing stricter rules. 4- Comments/suggestions on improving coordination of IAA/IAF scientific and technical matters for the IAC. Maintain two identities IAA sessions need to be clearly identified in the IAC program. As it was a few years ago, the number of IAA sessions should be negotiated and fixed to allow IAA the flexibility to react on new necessities coming from the constantly changing study groups. IAA should formally represented in IAC at all levels. IAA/IAF collaboration, cooperation, and coordination is welcomed; experience at Paris meeting, spring 2006, was that IAA/IAF collaboration to the IAF meant the dismantling of B5 Small Satellite Missions Symposium. Strongly urge that this symposium remain intact and that the co-chairs retain the flexibility to manage and organize the sessions to the benefit of IAA. It would be good if VP, SAC is also treated as IPC Co- Chair and interacts with the two IPC Co-Chairs to bring about harmony between IAF and IAA but still retaining the individual character of IAA. IAA-SAC must not be confused equivalent to IPC in fact, IAA-SAC is much larger focus on Studies, Sessions, Commission technical activities etc. The SAC must strengthen its own Strategy and bring more visibility to IAA activities.

17 The Space Debris aspects are correlated between Commission V and the IAC Space Debris Sessions. This is owing to the Commission V terms of reference, and to its membership and meeting attendance by those involved in the organization of the sessions. The complete and on-going work of the IAA study groups should be reflected better in the program (dedicated sessions?). This would stimulate work in these groups and show their relevance. Do not try to coordinate more between IAA and IAF. Some redundancy is not a plague as long as it is confined to a reasonable extent and not systematic, and differences in management have to be considered more than a laboratory of ideas than a competition. For attendants that are not aware of internal process, the sessions look very much the same and contribute to the success of the whole congress. No superstructure We have a clear distribution: IAF is technical matters (and Ctee s) and IAA is scientific/programmatic matters (and Com/Study Groups). If this distribution is respected then the work is clearly split. To handle any gray areas a coordination group (not a superstructure) from IAF TAC and IAA SAC might be useful to check the overall program distribution of sessions and allocate responsibilities according to above general distribution of matters. A better coordination between the IAF and the IAA would be useful, but the IPC is the place where it should take place. The overlap between some of the IAA and IAF commissions results in confusion in the IAC Technical Program definition. The most evident consequence is that in some cases the same subject appears in different IAC sessions, some times taking place at the same time. The IPC with two co-chairs need an executive bureau, as Prof. Roeser mentioned. The Steering Group including 5 members responsible for each of the Categories, representatives of IAA, IAF, IISL, and responsible for plenary events, which was created recently, seems to be a proper body providing necessary assistance for the IPC Co-chairs. Including Commission Chairs in the IPC seems also effective. The IAA Secretary General and the IAF Managing Director should become members of IPC Steering group (executive bureau). IPC Membership Character The IPC suffers a lack of formalism in its membership and this affects its decision process by having only IPC open meetings where non-ipc members can influence or make decisions. The low influence of the Steering Group in the definition of the contents of Symposia and Sessions results in three bad consequences: small respect to adequately covering the theme of the congress (lack of purpose), an incredibly large number of papers accepted in some sessions (lack of balance) and above mentioned overlaps (lack of coordination) Gradual improvement conducted by a reduced group of people with adequate authority were suggested for small rearrangement of the SG structure introducing a strong interface with the sponsoring organizations. This is a difficult matter in view of the dominance of the IAF. IAA presence as such at the IPC meeting appears mandatory. IAC is an equally important event for both IAA and IAF. IPC responsible for technical side of IAC should be equally represented by IAA and IAF. Vice Chair of SAC should represent IAA ex-officio. IPC is a collection of Symposium coordinators and Session chairs. It does not include Commission Chairs (IAA) and Committee Chairs (IAF), if they do not chair sessions nor coordinate symposia. The Commission Chairs should be a part of IPC. Observations or lessons learnt IAA sessions need to be clearly identified in the IAC program as IISL. The IPC should have formalism in its membership. 5- Comments on the changes occurred in identification of sessions for IAC Valencia Consensus about Sessions Identification

18 IAA clear identification of a sponsored or co-sponsored session in the IAC program is evaluated as mandatory. It was also recommended that since the IAA is a scientific body its sessions should be identified. Some responses recommend IAA to just insist on identification next year and found that here the IAA management was challenged. Some suggest that IAA may well appear again for sessions whose subject it has particularly contributed to explore. A better coordination between IAF, IAA, IISL and Local organizers could have avoided this scene. This subject must be taken up immediately and urgently. Motivation of IAA teams How to keep teams motivated inside IAA if the sessions become IAF? The IAA has lost some of its identity within IAC as a result of recent organizational changes. A return to specific IAF, IAA, and IISL sponsored sessions is recommended. However, more joint sessions, like those at the two World Space Congresses, could be undertaken. This change did not bother me as Symposium E3 is clearly an IAA-organized symposium, and besides, the participants who come to listen to the presentations do not seem to care. Now, if the IISL managed to have its symposia clearly identified, it may be due to IISL doing a better job of coordinating with the IPC Co-Chair? Coordination between Secretariats The IAA Secretariat must well-interface with IAF Secretariat especially for Congress activities and must have regular meetings to ensure that IAA Sessions and aspects are focused and not forgotten. The Secretariat must be more vigilant and active. IAA Role The fact that only IISL sessions were identified in the title to be from IISL, and this was not the case for IAA, is not understandable. But on the other hand if the participants are not aware of the difference it might be better to remove any reference to IAF, IAA and IISL in the session titles and numbers. Or if used then for all! (This issue must be carefully reviewed due to the new approach of IAF making IAC into an all IAF event as partly proposed by IAF in Valencia.) Observations or lessons learnt The IAA Secretariat must well-interface with IAF Secretariat especially for Congress activities and must have regular meetings. 6- Comments on IAA and IPC guidelines/rules related to symposia and sessions management. Refine SAC mechanism The IAA-SAC reviews program items before proposing them to the IPC. This review should be separately conducted by the SAC chair and vice-chair based on lists of symposium/sessions proposed by the commissions before a certain date specified. IPC Reforms Needed Sessions management was fine. Overall coordination was somewhat poor, and venue was hopeless (very pretty, but totally inadequate for a large Conference) A 350 person delegate body is difficult to manage. I agree with most of the suggestions made by Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Roeser. We are informed too late about such matters as room assignments, acceptances, etc. The IPC agendas are now so large that the meetings during the congress are more of having the chairs of the IPC (and any special task force) to report on the activities, instructions given and what will be done by the IPC lead, rather than having discussions and trying to collect inputs from the IPC general members. Avoid having the IPC meetings during the congress in parallel with any other activities (e.g. sessions) to get a better attendance!

19 Interactive Sessions The concept of Interactive Sessions will require a lot of careful planning and understanding by all IPC Members and if not implemented properly then it can leave an un-satisfying feeling and impact attendance. I am also not sure whether this concept is OK for IAA Sessions. Common Agreement IAA and IAF symposia and session chairs shall have the declared freedom to interchange abstracts during the selection process. In case of overlapping themes, the session chairs could be encourages to mutually agree on joint IAA/IAF sessions, in order to make maximum use of the synergy potential of both bodies, but keeping the number of IAA session unchanged. Observations or lessons learnt IPC Reforms Needed 7- Comments/suggestions on IAA Plenary Events, IAA Highlight Lectures and Poster Sessions. Plenary Events with Heads of Agencies The process for selecting Plenary Events is improving from year to year. However, the Head of Agencies Plenary Event is no longer attractive. It was a debacle that might even have an impact on the leaders participation next year. It is now a series of official statements without any connections with what the others are saying. It should be reconsidered to make it more interactive (and attractive). Something like talk-show events could be more interesting. Other Plenary Events Plenary Events are not good if you have more than 3 to 4 persons report on their present activities and plans in < 5 minutes and sometimes even without viewgraphs! Other plenary events and highlight lectures were excellent. The only complaint is that they came so late after a full day of listening to other presentations and filled any slot of time available at the congress. Interaction with the audience should be encouraged through written questions in order to avoid loosing time with microphone. They must be kept and promoted as key events in the IAC. The distinction between Plenary Events and Highlight Lectures must be better known. Time Available for Plenary Events It is interesting to be able to open these to the general public, but maybe there should be fewer and on topics of more (and real) concern to the public. The Plenary Events are important for the IAC success as they provide an opportunity to leaders in space to interact and present their views. However, there is always a time crunch for the Plenary and does not leave behind a feeling of success in many cases. In fact, many times Plenaries become events to be seen in or promoting somebody but the right character is missed out. A more determined effort to make Plenaries successful and interactive is required. Poster Sessions Suggestions Poster sessions content and accommodations were unprofessional. More scientific plenary and highlight sessions are needed. Right now, there are too many commercial and political sessions. Poster Sessions will need to become real Short Interactive Sessions, using modern IT tools, but cannot continue as they were in Valencia. A lot more work has to go into a proper definition of what is a Short Interactive Session, up until now called Poster Sessions. I continue to believe that the expression Poster Session should not be used, but should be replaced by an expression which would be consistent with the new definition of such sessions. This should be discussed further during the IPC meeting in March 2007 in Paris.

20 Limited Attendance Posters Session: they are becoming step-sessions and not being given the importance that they must have. While Poster participants have no choice but to display posters but Members who see the Posters are limited. I would suggest that all-out efforts are required to make Posters successful. If Plenaries gain importance by attendance of all IAF, IAA, IISL top-brass I am not sure how many of them see the posters and even spend an hour or so. So if this importance is not perceived by the tops then how will Posters get any importance while Plenaries will always get the importance? A determined approach is required and we must make joint and committed efforts to make Posters more successful (the same will be true for Interactive Sessions). Academy members could help increasing attendance at Poster sessions if they actually go there, showing interest and possibly pushing others. Observations or lessons learnt Plenary event should not include more than 3 to 4 panelists. Number of plenaries should be reduced. 8- Comments/suggestions on improving the perception of three IAC organizations (IAF, IAA, IISL) in the media and among congress participants. Perception in the Media If the sources of the sessions are visible in the program to everybody, no special additional actions are to be taken. The three organizations will not be defined through the congress. The media will only see the Congress as such. The organizations can only develop a branding of their own, through specific "products". In this area, IAA has the best opportunity with its Cosmic Studies and its Position Papers. They have to be marketed vigorously. Perception among Congress Participants The "normal" congress participant will not be able to distinguish between IAA and IAF (he will, however, understand that IISL is different from its thematic). I would refrain from launching a kind of offensive like "IAA sessions" are of higher quality etc. Let the interesting topics and the good speakers create the attractiveness of IAA sessions. The public relations aspect of the IAC does not seem to be well organized at all. Is there a press conference during the IAC, and its reflection on the IAC web site, where the Local Organizing Committee introduces the three organisations (IAF, IIAA and IISL), with a brief description of what they are and what they do? Do we need to? Only change I would suggest is to enhance the IAC tag. At the moment it comes across as IAF-only Learning from Experience Discuss in Lessons Learned Session move session from Friday afternoon to earlier in the week when more folks might participate and a mid-course correction would be possible. The programme has a good description of the different organisations, but it is not explained why all three are working together to make up the IAC. Maybe a more integrated IAC is needed with sessions being common to all organisations and not having separate ones. The distinction of the three organizations by most of the media and many of the participants, particularly the younger participants, is poor. However, the distinction among the older professionals is generally well understood. Have a clear 1-page description for the preliminary announcements, final schedule, and media. For most participants IAC and IAF are regarded as synonyms. There is little visibility as to the detailed structure behind the scenes. As far as Space Debris is concerned, IAA is best known for their position papers which always provided excellent snapshots of the state-of-the-art in selected areas. There is a strong need to make the role of each organisation and their mutual cooperation much more transparent. It might be useful to include in the Conference Bags a flyer on the three bodies I know this stuff is given in the programme, but if there was an individual flyer on say the IAA talking about history, membership, organization etc, then this might bring it