The end of February 2020 did not only mark the regular paper submission deadline for EUSIPCO 2020, but also the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe. The EUSIPCO 2020 organizing committee decided soon afterwards that, despite the increasing uncertainty if and when the conference could take place, the work of the Technical Program Committee would proceed as planned. The aim was to have the conference proceedings published early September, even if the physical conference would have to be postponed. Today, we are proud and thankful that this aim has been achieved. Even though worldwide, many research labs had to revert to a fully online operational mode, academics were compelled to put remote teaching at the top of their priority list, and many of us were faced with combining telework with childcare, the persistent efforts of our Reviewers, Area Chairs, and Special Session Chairs have made it possible to compile a high-quality and timely Technical Program for EUSIPCO 2020.
A total of 679 Reviewers has contributed to the peer review of regular and special session papers for EUSIPCO 2020. The peer review process was organized across the various technical areas within the scope of EUSIPCO, and was diligently coordinated by our Area Chairs and Special Session Chairs. It should be emphasized that the commitment of our Reviewers, Area Chairs, and Special Session Chairs to contribute to the peer review process, was largely facilitated by the support of the eight EURASIP Technical Area Committees (TACs). Thanks to the loyalty of our Reviewers, Area Chairs, and Special Session Chairs, and despite the challenging context, the Technical Program Committee managed to secure 3 independent reviews for the majority of the submitted papers. More specifically, 24 % of the papers received 2 reviews, 58 % of the papers received 3 reviews, and 18 % of the papers received 4 or more reviews.
As a result, 499 papers were accepted for publication and included in the EUSIPCO 2020 conference proceedings. On a total of 829 submitted papers, including both regular and special session papers, this results in an acceptance rate of 60.2 %, which is slightly lower than the average acceptance rate of 64.3 % in the past five EUSIPCO editions. Also compared to previous editions (2015 – 2019), EUSIPCO 2020 received a historic high of 764 regular paper submissions, and only 65 paper submissions to special and invited sessions. Looking at the number of submitted papers per technical area, we observe that the strongest growing areas compared to EUSIPCO 2019 are in Acoustic, Speech and Music Signal Processing (+ 40 % submitted papers), Biomedical Image & Signal Analytics (+ 22 % submitted papers), Theoretical and Methodological Trends in Signal Processing (+ 11 % submitted papers), and Signal and Data Analytics for Machine Learning (+ 11 % submitted papers).
The EUSIPCO 2020 conference proceedings have been compiled based on a thematic grouping of papers into sessions, however these sessions exceptionally may not correspond to the lecture and poster sessions as we will have them during the physical conference in January 2021. As it is uncertain to date which authors will be able to travel to Amsterdam for presenting their work, the program of the physical conference will be announced only towards the end of 2020. Nevertheless, we will strive to give all authors the opportunity to present their published papers, either remotely or on-site, and to stimulate as much interaction as possible within our scientific community.
Toon van Waterschoot, Pina Marziliano, and Alle-Jan van der Veen
EUSIPCO 2020 Technical Program Chairs