Guidelines for the Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC)

These guidelines provide a preliminary description of the SOC role and duties. It refers to the deadlines & milestones posted on the web page.

SOC membership

The EPSC2026 SOC is composed of two Co-Chairs, ex-officio members (EPSC Executive Committee Chairs and Europlanet President) and several additional members. The mandate of the EPSC SOC Co-Chairs runs for three years. To ensure continuity, the mandates of the two EPSC Co-chairs will end in different years.

A call for EPSC SOC membership is released biennially for membership for 2 years (new EPSC SOC members will be selected this year). The SOC Co-Chairs select the Programme Group Coordinators (2-3 EPSC SOC members depending on the size of the Programme Group):

  • Terrestrial Planets (TP): 3 EPSC SOC members
  • Outer Planet Systems (OPS): 2 EPSC SOC members
  • Missions, Instrumentation, Techniques, Modelling (MITM): 2 EPSC SOC members
  • Small Bodies (comets, KBOs, rings, asteroids, meteorites, dust) (SB): 3 EPSC SOC members
  • Exoplanets, Origin of Planetary Systems and Astrobiology (EXOA): 2 EPSC SOC members
  • Outreach, Diversity, Amateur Astronomy, and Community (ODAC): 2 EPSC SOC members

It is expected that Programme Group members will participate in the SOC telecons, at least one for each PG is required to participate to support the preparation of the EPSC meeting. Each programme group is also asked to assign one PG Coordinator who is responsible for finalizing the scheduling tools.

Roles and responsibilities of the SOC members

  • Session programme finalization (05–18 Mar):
    • Finalize sessions within PG, ensure a proper session description and adequate session conveners (considering also diversity of gender, nationality/institutes and career stage).
    • Add one general session as the first session per PG (“General topics of XXX”). Abstracts submitted to that session will then later be either grouped into a new session (i.e. if the session programme missed an important topic) or will be distributed to other, existing sessions.
    • Support the SOC Co-Chairs in harmonizing the sessions across the PGs (session merging, session transfer across PGs, converting session proposals into workshops, etc.). Please note that a merging of sessions should normally be avoided at this stage but may be suitable for sessions with very similar content following a discussion with the session conveners.
    • Participate in SOC telecons organized by the SOC Co-Chairs.
  • Call for abstracts (25 Mar–13 May): Monitor and encourage session conveners to solicit abstracts.
  • During the Convener Part 1 (SOI) & Part 2 (SOII) (14–27 May):
    • Monitor and coordinate convener activities.
    • Encourage conveners to refer to Copernicus Office Meeting (not to SOC) for technical questions at the helpdesk email address.
    • Participate in conveners meetings as required by SOC Co-Chairs.
    • Encourage conveners to invite speakers in their session before the abstract deadline on 13 May 2026, 13:00 CEST.
    • Suggest potential topics and persons for the PG keynotes and debates before the abstract deadline
  • During PCI/PCII/PCIII (28 May–30 Jun):
    • Monitor, support and coordinate convener activities. Make decisions as appropriate at PG level. Identify open points at PG level that need to be settled at SOC level.
    • Participate in SOC coordination telecons as required by SOC Co-Chairs.

We expect you to ensure that participation in your Programme Group is diverse and representative of the whole research community. A minimum of two conveners for each session is recommended, to limit bias when selecting chairpersons, inviting and reviewing abstracts and selecting contributors. You should ensure sessions balance gender, career age and nationality and are organized without disadvantage to any potential participant. If there is a possibility, please support early career researchers and persons from underrepresented countries. From 2025 on, at least one convener/session chair should be an early-career participant. All PG coordinators, conveners and co-conveners are expected to abide by the EPSC Code of Conduct.

The Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer provides the tools required to assist you in the fulfilment of your duties.