Dear CSC friends,

I hope that the new year is off to a good start for all of you.  I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Robert Jandl, deputy coordinator of Division 8, to the Congress Scientific Committee. Robert will be replacing Alain Franc, who is not able to continue in this role.

As you all know, the next phase of our work is to promote the preparation and submission of session proposals from within IUFRO and from other partners, optimally in cooperation with IUFRO Research Groups, Working Parties and/or Task Forces. All session proposals will be submitted online via the Congress website which is now open:  http://iufro2014.com/scientific-program/session-proposals/.  Session proposals can be submitted any time from now until April 30^th.  As we have discussed earlier, we expect all members of the CSC to help spread the word about the open call for session proposals and to encourage the preparation of session proposals by IUFRO units and others (preferably involving two or more IUFRO units, optimally across IUFRO Divisions, Task Forces and/or other organizations) closely aligned to the Congress Themes. It would be most helpful if those preparing session proposals could send drafts of these proposals to relevant members of the CSC prior to their submission online – this could help us identify potential co-organizers (from other IUFRO units), and thereby reduce the number of very similar session proposals (which was a bit of a problem for the 2010 Congress). It will also save us work during the session proposal review phase (May-June), since part of that review process will be to identify very similar sessions that need to be combined.

In the coming weeks, all CSC members will be given access to the session proposal database and online review system – you will receive a message when this is ready.

Finally, I would like to note that all session proposals, including those that will eventually be designated as sub-plenary sessions, must be submitted through this online system (which, by the way, is very easy to use). I will be writing separately to CSC members (and other identified colleagues) who have already volunteered to serve as the focal points for development of the sub-plenary sessions in cooperation with relevant IUFRO Task Forces, which we identified as priorities during our CSC meeting in Nairobi last June.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns at this stage.  I look forward to working with you in this very important phase of preparations for the 2014 Congress.

With best wishes,

John

John A. Parrotta, Ph.D.

National Research Program Leader, International Science Issues

Chair, IUFRO 2014 Congress Scientific Committee

U.S. Forest Service - Research & Development

1601 N. Kent Street, Arlington VA 22209 (USA)

Tel: +1-703-605-4178; Fax: +1-703-605-5131

mobile: +1-787-674-2661