1. Aims of the AgEng Conferences

Covering the whole field of Agricultural Engineering, the aims of the AgEng conferences are to promote:

• The exchange of information and experience between professionals in Agricultural Engineering and related disciplines engaged in industry, commerce, extension, education, and research.
• The presentation of accomplishments by engineers and scientists in the fields of research and development for appreciation, discussion and criticism by international counterparts. This exchange is primarily intended to gain value from these accomplishments from academic and engineering standpoints, in order to provide recognised references in science and technology networks and data banks.
• The regular gathering of those with an interest and expertise in Agricultural Engineering, around EurAgEng, the European Society of Agricultural Engineers.

2. Regulations (R!) and recommendations (r...)

2.1 Name of the conference

(R!) The name of the conference shall be AgEng (year)(town of the organisation).

(R!) A conference organiser, proposed by the National hosting Society shall be designated by the EurAgEng Executive Committee. The organiser shall be a member of EurAgEng Council and shall submit progress reports to Council. The organiser will be responsible for adhering to the AgEng conference regulations.

(R!) An international scientific committee shall be formed at the beginning of the organisation process.

(R!) At least 50% of members of the committee shall be from outside the organising country.

(r...) The expertise of the members should cover all the topics which are planned for the conference.

(R!) The selection of contributions shall be made on abstracts of no more than 400 words on no more than two pages.

(R!) The criteria for selection shall include:

• innovation
• experience, theory or modelling content
• scientific quality
• interest and relevance to Agricultural Engineering
• interest for the EurAgEng Society

(R!) The final selection shall be based on the written opinions of the members of the scientific committee on the contributions.

(R!) The final selection shall be made by the maximum number of members of the scientific committee as can be gathered for such purpose.

(r...) Scientific selection will be used for both oral and poster presentations at the same level.

(r...) An appropriate balance will be maintained between oral and poster presentations.

(R!) Two announcements and a preliminary program shall be sent to the participants.

(R!) The two announcements and the preliminary program shall have been previously accepted by the EurAgEng Executive Committee.

(R!) The first announcement shall include the topics chosen for the conference, and the composition of the Scientific Committee.

(R!) The two announcements and the preliminary program shall encourage authors to submit the complete version of their papers to the refereed scientific journal recommended by the EurAgEng Society.

(r...) The preliminary program of the conference should be sent to the participants at least three months before the conference.

(r...) The first announcement should be delivered during the previous AgEng conference.

(R!) The working language for the oral and written presentations shall be English. If another language is allowed for oral presentations by the organisers, simultaneous translation shall be provided and shall be paid from funds outside the participants' fees budget.

(R!) All selected authors shall bring a complete scientific version of their papers to the conference. They will be called EurAgEng papers and will be allocated a number for future filing (as 'Year+number at the conference').

(R!) Recommendations for the presentation of oral and written contributions at the conference shall be sent in advance to the participants.

(R!) The front page of each EurAgEng paper shall be standardised for all authors. A standard front page will be sent in advance to the participants. It  will include the logo, the EurAgEng Society name, the paper number, the title, the names of the authors and of their organisations (with address), and a short summary of the paper.

(R!) The logo of the conference shall appear with the name of the EurAgEng Society at the top of the front page of any document dealing with the conference, in announcements, programs and scientific papers. The typeface shall be Arial, and the format shall be as shown in the examples contained in the Annex.

(R!) The abstracts of the scheduled presentations shall be bound in a book of abstracts delivered to the participants at the conference. They may be those abstracts sent for the selection process, corrected and completed by authors if necessary.

(r...) A CD rom containing the full papers, abstracts and posters should be produced for the participants and should be available at the conference or as soon as possible afterwards. It is accepted that there may be technical difficulties preventing the inclusion of some of the material.

(R!) The conference shall include oral and poster presentations, seminars on special topics, keynote presentations delivered by selected invited speakers, and the meetings of the EurAgEng Special Interest Groups (SIGs).

(R!) The EurAgEng SIG meetings shall be announced in the first two announcements, and fully listed in the programs of the conference.

(R!) For oral presentations, speakers shall have at least 15 minutes speaking time, and at least five minutes discussion time for each paper.

(R!) An adequate period of time of at least one hour per day shall be allocated to the poster sessions in the program so that participants can gather around posters. The author of each poster shall be present at the poster for at least one complete session, and the time at which the author will be present shall be indicated in the conference programme.

(R!) Priority shall be given to attracting young engineers and students, by providing special meetings and seminars.

(r...) Session chairmen will be encouraged to make a short report to the conference organiser on the quality of each presentation.

(r...) The conference organiser will be at liberty to conduct an evaluation of the conference by questionnaire or other means.

(R!) A levy shall be paid by the conference organiser to EurAgEng for each participant registered at the conference. The levy shall be payable within one month of the end of the conference, and shall be on a scale set by the Council of EurAgEng.

(R!) Reduced conference fees will be offered to students, young engineers and delegates from developing countries.

(R!) Members of EurAgEng will be provided with special advantages, such as preferential rates for registration at AgEng conferences.

 

July 99