INVITED PLENARY SPEAKERS

IWANN 2021 is an online Conference

The specific circumstances we are living now and in the near future require us to be very cautious in making decisions especially in organizing events involving numerous people. The safety and security of our participants in the next edition of IWANN 2021 is always on top of the agenda.

Due to the current situation of the pandemic, we consider that the most convenient decision is that IWANN 2021 will be an online conference. It is a painful decision, but we believe that it is the most recommended from a health point of view.

We will maintain the spirit of work and collaboration that has always distinguished the past editions of IWANN, and for this, we will have a professional online platform, which allows the presentation of communications and the interaction of the speakers in an optimal way.

We are convinced that the scientific-technical quality of this future edition of IWANN will be a success, and for this reason we request your collaboration and active participation in it.

We will continue with the structure of previous editions (Plenary Sessions, Special Sessions, Tutorials on relevant topics and Open Discussion forum), favouring the connection/interaction among attendees to facilitate the debate.

IWANN 2021 Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters

We are delighted to announce the preparation of a Special Issue of Neural Processing Letters (JCR Impact Factor=2.891, Q2) published by Springer. The authors of those papers among the best ones from IWANN 2021 will be invited to prepare an extended version. Substantial new material should be added compared to the Conference paper. A full journal-level review process will be done, independently from the Conference paper, including an evaluation of the added value of the new material. 

Early Career Researcher IWANN 2021 award by PeerJ Publishing

The Chairs have made the following decision on the winner of the IWANN 2021 Early Career researcher award:

Shih-Kai Hung. University of Essex (United Kingdom)

for his paper Facial Image Augmentation from Sparse Line Features Using Small Training Data, co-authored with John Gan. We want to congratulate Mr. Shih-Kai Hung and his co-author for their outstanding work. You are invited to browse the interview with Shih-Kai Hung at PeerJblog.

During the Conference, a total of 28 authors that were eligible for the award presented their candidacy. It has been a difficult choice since the average quality of both the papers and the talks was remarkable, so we would like to extend our congratulations to all the authors.

As a part of a successful collaboration between IWANN 2021 and PeerJ Publishing, an award is offered to the best paper authored, accepted, and presented at the Conference by an early career researcher (PhD student or up to 4 years postdoc). The winner will be invited to submit a substantial extension of their paper to the PeerJ Conference Collection (see below). If accepted, the paper will be published with Article Processing Charges waived. PeerJ Publishing also features award winners on their blog site and interviews them regarding their research.

PeerJ Conference Collection with IWANN 2021

We are glad to announce the agreement with PeerJ Publishing for the launch of a Conference Collection with papers submitted to one of PeerJ Journals, such as PeerJ Life & Environment (JCR Impact Factor=2.379, Q2) and PeerJ Computer Science (JCR Impact Factor=3.091, Q1). Outstanding papers accepted and presented at IWANN 2021 will be selected and invited to submit a substantially extended version to a PeerJ journal. The papers will be subject to the usual reviewing process by the journal, in particular assessing whether the paper contains sufficient novel contributions to be considered as a new paper different from the one in the conference. Upon acceptance, paper publication will require Article Processing Charges, since PeerJ is a Gold Open Access publisher. 

First Call For Papers

It is our great pleasure to announce you the 16th International Work-Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, which will take place in Madeira (Portugal) in June, 16th-18th, 2021.

The specific circumstances we are living now and in the near future require us to be very cautious in making decisions especially in organizing events involving numerous people.

Under these uncertain circumstances, the safety, security, respect, and well-being of our participants in the next edition of IWANN 2021 will be on top of the agenda. The conference will be adapted to fulfil the regulations imposed by the competent authorities. We will try to maintain the spirit of work and collaboration that has always distinguished the past editions of IWANN.

First of all, we have chosen as location one of the places in the world with less incidence of the COVID-19, the island of Madeira (Portugal). The venue of the congress will be in the Hotel Vida Mar with many open spaces and large meeting rooms.

Secondly, changes have been introduced in the timing of the congress to facilitate maximum participation, such as the possibility of reviewing the content of the papers presented a few days after the congress to incorporate improvements arising from the presentation discussions.

Finally, for those researchers who cannot travel, virtual sessions with direct connection will be programmed to facilitate the debate.

We hope that the changes introduced will be well received and that we will be able to collaborate closely to make this 2021 edition a success.

Andreu Català, Gonzalo Joya, Ignacio Rojas
Co-Chairmen IWANN 2021