The first 16 months of the project were basically dedicated to the organisation of the 2020 Dubrovnik edition of the conference. This follows the successful previous editions, held under the same name.
Rather than presenting the organisational and logistic details, one presents here the results of that work, in the form of describing the information presented at the conference website (and some steps towards its preparation), www.eucnc.eu which is hosted and managed by the project partners.
The main sections of the website reflect the conference structure:
• Committees: Information on the composition of the Steering, Technical Programme and Local Organising Committees. Regarding general chairs, the objective is to have a senior EC official and the representative from the main conference sponsor.
• Authors: Information regarding the submission of scientific papers/posters/ workshops/special sessions/tutorials to the conference, including all the necessary guidelines for submission and for paper/poster presentation. The organisation of EuCNC is a non-profit action, so, the available surplus is used for students’ grants (free registration and travel waivers) in order to allow students to participate in the conference, widening the community and promoting talented young researchers.
• Registration: Information for people to register to the conference, including the rules applicable to authors with multiple papers or posters accepted to the conference. Early-bird registrations have a discount. The rules for Travel Grants are available here, including the key dates and the application process.
• Programme: Information regarding all the sessions of the conference, with special emphasis on keynotes, panels, workshops, special sessions and tutorials. Keynotes and Panels continue to be used as a highlight, having involved senior representatives from the major industrial players in the area, such as Orang and Huawei, and from academia, such as University of Oulu (FI) and University of Arizona (US).
• Venue and Travel: Logistics information regarding the conference, namely, the venue, maps for facilitating the participants’ orientation to the venue, travel and visa information, as well as information about the city and available touristic tours.
• Patrons and Exhibitors: Information for exhibitors (e.g. call for exhibitors and exhibiting guidelines), since the exhibition is a good opportunity for European projects to showcase their work. Patronage opportunities are also presented.
• Media: includes news and media related contents, such as photo galleries, videos and webcasts of the conference.
• About: General information about the conference, including history, links to the previous editions’ websites and contacts.
Like other aspects of everyone’s lives, the 2020 Dubrovnik edition was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the usual format was replaced by a virtual one (only remote attendance), reduced to the Keynotes, Panels, Papers in Regular Sessions and Posters Extended Abstracts.
On the other hand, regarding the organisation of the 2021 Porto edition, it was agreed to merge EuCNC with the 6G Summit (organised by the 6G Flagship Project, Univ. Oulu, FI, coordinated by Prof. Matti Latva-aho), naming it as the 2021 Joint EuCNC & 6G Summit, with a unique organising committee, joining the colleagues from both entities.
