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"I believe that it is our obligation not to hesitate when confronted with projects like these, not only for ourselves, but mainly for the teams we integrate, for the institution we represent...", José Luís Santos

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A few considerations on EWOFS 2010

*By José Luís Santos 

I was invited to share with you some information and thoughts on the fourth edition of the European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors (EWOFS2010), which took place in Porto (Hotel Solverde in Vila Nova de Gaia), between 7 and 10 September. I could look at this event from a more descriptive and formal perspective, but I simply chose to highlight key moments and to emphasize factors I believe are crucial in an initiative of this type.

EWOFS is a set of conferences that take place every three years with a centralized coordination structure. The last edition had taken place in 2007 in Naples, where, on 5 July, INESC Porto was chosen to organize the following edition and I was appointed the person in charge for its implementation. The decision to award a certain institution the opportunity to organize such an event is based on an essential factor, namely the significant contribution that that institution has brought to the progress of optical fibre sensors, a requirement that INESC Porto fulfilled entirely.  

That day was for us, INESC Porto/UOSE, an incredibly important day, but I must confess that that was one of two occasions where I felt the weight of responsibility to be overwhelming. Despite all fears and anguish that may be felt in times like these, I believe that, for several reasons, it is our obligation not to hesitate when confronted with projects like this one, not only for ourselves, but mainly for the teams we integrate, for the institution we represent, for the region we live in, and henceforth. Those who have already organized an international conference are aware of the magnitude of details that should be taken into consideration and a vast set of responsibilities that should be taken. In the end, the event takes place in a period of just a few days, where the probability of unforeseeable events that may throw away the work of many years should not be disregarded.

We prepared EWOFS 2010 for three years, involving vast teams, such as the local organizing committee and several INESC Porto service departments, the International Advisory Committee (15 members) and the Technical Committee (30 members), other than the groups that coordinate the EWOFS “brand” (three members). There were several critical events, one of which was the negotiation with SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) for the publication of the conference proceedings, an essential factor for the conference’s prestige. That period coincided with the entry into force of the new public contract scheme, which all of a sudden required us to ask criminal records from the members of the SPIE Board, some of them very close to winning a Nobel prize! That was the second moment I felt completely overwhelmed not knowing what to do, but fortunately the knowledge and efficiency of INESC Porto’s legal department, combined with an infinite understanding from SPIE, allowed us to overcome that major “storm”. The complex economic situation, both nationally and internationally, has also limited us drastically in terms of finding sponsors, but alternatives were also possible, such as the organization of a technical exhibition, parallel to the conference, where internationally renowned firms in the optical fibre area presented their latest products. 

Several factors condition the success (or at least the survival) of a conference. One of them is certainly the number and the quality of submitted scientific papers, but more and more another aspect is becoming crucially important: the quality of the invited speakers and present relevance of the themes discussed by them. The effort here was almost “traumatizing”, but I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that we managed to bring a group of 14 speakers that 'glued' participants to their chairs! Some important developments were presented and, we should acknowledge it, we were also lucky. One of those speakers (Michel Digonnet, University of Stanford, USA) presented for the first time experimental results that demonstrated the possibility to substantially decrease the speed of light propagation in the optical fibre, thus increasing the times of interaction with the magnitude to be measured, thus making, let’s say, “indescribable!” measurement resolutions possible. Thus, EWOFS 2010 in the city of Porto will be always known as the place where, for the first time, this important scientific progress was presented.

EWOFS 2010 welcomed more than 250 participants and the number of submitted articles exceeded 160, coming from all continents, although there was ,of course, a European predominance. Other than the awards for best student articles in each of the Conference’s themes and the award for Best Article, EWOFS 2010 was also an opportunity to give the Career Award to two prominent researchers in this area, Professor Wolfgang Ecke (IPHT, Germany) and Professor John Dakin (University of de Southampton, United Kingdom).

When INESC Porto/UOSE took the responsibility of organizing EWOFS 2010, explicitly or implicitly we had several objectives: (i) to provide an event with a high quality scientific programme; (ii) promote Portugal’s image, not only in terms of the scientific and technological competences we had already demonstrated in this area, but also by providing an organization we were hoping would be acknowledged, characterized by a high level of professionalism.

As we can conclude by the multiple messages we’ve received after EWOFS 2010, we believe that we were successful in our venture. Professor Fabien Sorin of MIT, USA, one of the invited speakers, sent us the following message:

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Dear José Luís Santos,

 

Being back in the US, I wanted to thank you again for your kind invitation and for giving us the opportunity to present our work during EWOFS 2010. I also wanted to congratulate you for this great event. The scientific content, talks and discussions were extremely interesting, relevant and useful. The organization of all the logistics, as well as the various social events was excellent, and the Porto of the highest quality! I have also only heard extremely positive remarks about the workshop from various colleagues and attendants.

Thank you very much again and with the hope of meeting you again soon,

Kind regards,

Fabien Sorin 

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I cannot finish this text without thanking the dozens of people in our institution and international committees that contributed, always with full dedication, to the successful organization of the Fourth European Workshop on Optical Fiber Sensors, in Porto, Portugal, 2010. To all of you, my profound acknowledgement and deepest thank you.

 

*Researcher at the Optoelectronics and Electronics Systems Unit (UOSE)