Q&A for NMPC bids

Japan

Question: Will there be an attempt be made to raise industrial or government support, and if so and successful, what will the funds be used for? That request is not needed for the other two proposals, since their local costs are probably low, but high-cost countries like Japan should consider raising industrial or government support to increase the chance that their country is selected (some TC members will tend to choose lower cost countries).

Answer: The National Organizing Committee (NOC) will try to get sponsorships from industry and grants from public organizations and foundations. The NOC Chair has served as the Exhibits and Sponsorship Chair for the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in 2015 and has connections with many companies through collaborative researches on NMPC. The Industrial Vice-Chairs from MathWorks and Cybernet Systems, which owns Maplesoft, also have connections with companies in various industrial fields. At a moderate estimate, sponsorships of several thousand dollars would be anticipated. The NOC will also apply for grants from Kyoto City (max 1,800USD), Kyoto University (max 9,000USD), and other foundations. The extra income from sponsorships and grants could be used for, e.g., free lunches for participants and enriching the social program and coffee breaks.

China

Question: The Chinese bid is missing much of the information needed in a bid, such as the meeting registration fee and hotel fees in Euro or USD.

Answer: We can keep the registration costs below 310 USD / person, as suggested in my revised bid [uploaded with original above]. However, as we have a number of possibilities here in Shanghai to raise additional funding or convince local industrial sponsors to support the event, this number should be interpreted as a worst-case upper bound on the registration cost. If the conference is happening in 2021, there is still plenty of time to write proposals for additional funds to support the conference (deadlines for such proposals are on Jan 15, 2019 or, alternatively, Jan 15, 2020, which would both be in time).

Slovakia

Question: The Bratislava bid lists IPC chairs/co-chairs but the NMO does not propose or select the IPC chairs/cochairs - the latter are chosen by the IFAC TC in charge of the meeting (that is, the IFAC TC Chair selects the IPC Chair based on input from his/her Vice Chairs). The NMO should not select the IPC Chair/Co-chair, to avoid a massive conflict of interest. Normally the TC Chair does not serve as an IPC Chair, since the TC Chair has oversight of the work of the IPC Chair and all symposia organized by the TC (also, the IPC Chair has normally already served as an IPC Chair, and so the new IPC Chair positions go to other people so that the TC has a pipeline of people to become future TC Vice Chairs and then TC Chair). Having an IPC Vice Chair serve as an IPC Chair is not a conflict of interest and is good practice if the person has not yet served as an IPC Chair and has a good chance of potentially becoming the IPC Chair. That is, you want multiple people within the TC who have served as IPC Chair so that you have a pool of individuals who are well prepared to serve as future TC Chair who will have oversight of IFAC symposia.

Answer: We admit we didn't know about the formal procedure of selection of IPC chairs/cochairs. What we wanted to indicate in the proposal is that high-profile TC members have agreed to work in conjunction with the NMO in organizing the conference from the technical program point of view. We feel that for a successful conference such a symbiosis is vital. Needless to say, we fully respect the TC autonomy in selecting IPC chairs/cochairs. We know most of the TC vice chairs personally and most of them would be a good pick.