QIP Charter
Goal of the Conference: The Workshop on Quantum Information Processing (QIP) is an annual conference about quantum computation and information which is usually held around January. Its goal is to represent the preceding year's best research in the area, in the form of both plenary talks and submitted papers. The conference has no published proceedings, and commonly includes the presentation of work published in proceedings of other conferences or in journals. The Steering Committee: The role of the Steering Committee (SC) is to determine the longer-term course of the conference and to decide upon venues for the next conferences, and to select and invite the plenary speakers for each meeting of the conference. It should also serve as a watchdog and make sure there are no obvious mistakes, e.g., in the choice of time of the conference by the local organizing committee. The SC consists of 9 people, including the local organizers of the previous, next, and subsequent QIPs, and is chaired by the local organizer of the next/current QIP. Members typically serve for 3 years, with the 3 longest-serving members being replaced once a year, typically soon after QIP. The current SC decides on the replacement of outgoing SC members. The SC chooses the chair of the programme committee (PC) for the next QIP. Starting typically in late summer, the SC invites roughly 5 plenary presentations (of the best recent research, but possibly also some 1 to 3 perspective or survey talks) and possibly some tutorial speakers, but otherwise leaves the details of the conference programme to the PC.
Business Meeting: At each QIP there is a business meeting that can be attended by all conference participants, to enable the community to influence the future of QIP democratically. There the organizer for the next QIP gives a presentation, and proposals for the venue of the QIP following the next one are presented and discussed, with an advisory vote taken among the participants. The actual decision about the venue is taken by the SC soon after that. Also other organizational matters can be discussed at the business meeting.
The Programme Committee: The role of the Programme Committee (PC) is to select the best submitted papers and to put together a programme for the next QIP. The PC chair chooses the members of the PC (helped by advice from the SC), typically 15 or more people representing the broad range of subfields, both from computer science and from physics. The PC chair determines (in cooperation with the SC) the rules for submission and puts out a call for submissions. The selection of talks among the submitted papers is competitive, with typically between 32 and 50 accepted submissions; it is recommended to keep the number of acceptances minimal but the PC has flexibility to accommodate exceptional breadth and quality of submissions in a given year. The PC can suggest to the SC promotion of a few of the best submitted papers to "plenary” status, and can distinguish between longer and shorter time slots for the rest (typically 30 and 20 minutes, called “featured” and “contributed” talks, respectively). Poster submissions will generally be accepted unless they are off-topic or clearly wrong, to enable people to obtain funds for travel. At the discretion of the PC, best poster prizes can be awarded. Typical Conference Outline: On the days immediately preceding the conference, tutorials can take place, typically each a half or a full day of lectures on a specific topic, aimed at students. If no or only limited tutorials can be offered, this has to be decided by the local organizer in conjunction with the SC. The actual conference takes place from Monday to Friday, with (usually) Wednesday afternoon off for scientific discussions and social excursions. Each morning and afternoon session starts with a 40- to 45-minute plenary talk, followed by contributed/featured talks. Each talk is followed by 5 minutes for questions and for setting up the next talk. The poster session(s), business meeting, and a rump session (optional; for short impromptu presentations of very recent results) are held in late afternoons. The poster session forms an integral part of the QIP conference, and activities such as poster prizes or advertisements for excellent posters are encouraged. Once the conference is over, the website will be hosted on a permanent web server located at ETH Zurich. Some hosting fees (about 1000 CHF) will be required for the service. These fees should be paid by the organizers. The organizers are also responsible for providing all required web files to ETH Zurich.
Conflict of Interest: 1. SC member cannot be an plenary speaker, but PC members can be plenary speakers.
2. Both SC and PC member are allowed to submit papers and as a paper presenter if the paper submission is accepted. In case the PC chair is submitting a paper, the PC committee must make sure that the submission will be treated exactly the same way as any other, particularly regarding the privacy of both reviewers and discussions concerning submissions. One possible approach is to nominate a "Vice PC chair" who can handle the submissions for which the PC chair has a conflict of interest, taking discussions outside the chairing system if required.
3. PC members must declare a conflict of interest on certain submissions (such as their own), so that they are not involved in the discussion concerning these papers.
