Hybrid Conference

RO-MAN 2022 will be held in a hybrid format, including simultaneous on-site and online sessions. Authors will have the options to present their work and interact with participants either physically in Napoli or virtually.

Online presentations will be an excellent way for researchers worldwide to attend the RO-MAN 2022 conference during the Covid-19 emergency. However, we also think that coming to Napoli may offer unique opportunities for researchers. Talking with each other before and after scientific sessions, sharing ideas during coffee breaks, watching a speaker engaging the audience on stage is different than listening to a recorded presentation and asking questions through a chat. Probably, many of us will agree that a similar difference occurs between physically interacting with an autonomous robot and talking with a chatbot on the web!

For this reason, we strongly encourage researchers to attend RO-MAN 2022 in Napoli whenever it is possible. We will ask authors to specify if they plan to participate virtually or physically before submitting their paper’s final version. Then, we will do our best to guarantee that researchers coming to Napoli will have the opportunity to attend technical sessions where all speakers are physically present. For this reason, we plan to have “full on-site sessions” where all speakers are physically attending the session and “full online sessions” where all speakers give presentations via videoconference. Pre-recorded online presentations will be limited to situations where different time zones make it complex for speakers to present live.

We hope you will appreciate our attempt to put human relationships back at the center. After all,  RO-MAN is the IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication: how could we explore this pivotal aspect of robotic research without emphasizing the importance of Human-Human Interactive Communication?