INTRODUCTION

The aim of any symposium sponsored by IUTAM is to assemble a group of active scientists within a well-defined field for the development of science within that field. In order to achieve an effective communication within this group, it is necessary to limit the number of active participants sufficiently. Since all IUTAM Symposia are reserved for invited participants, a limitation can readily be achieved.

Decisions regarding sponsorship of IUTAM Symposia are taken by the General Assembly of IUTAM; decisions regarding date and venue (host institution) are taken by the Bureau of IUTAM which also appoints the Scientific Committee and its Chairman.

You are kindly asked to contact at your earliest convenience the members of the Scientific Committee, as decided by the Bureau, inviting them to serve with you. The names and addresses of the members of the Scientific Committee are given on the enclosed list. Would you please inform the Bureau if anyone of them is unable to accept the invitation.

Date and host institution for the Symposium should be proposed to the Bureau at your earliest convenience. They are subject to approval by the Bureau to avoid possible clashes of dates of different Symposia.

Any formal questions regarding the rules and guidelines for the Symposium should be addressed to the IUTAM ex officio member of the Scientific Committee.

Below you will find a few Rules that have to be followed and some Guidelines.

1. During the preparation of the Symposium you are requested to keep the Secretary-General informed about all important steps of the development (by sending him copies of letters, circulars etc.).

2. It is your duty to inform the members of the Scientific Committee about all decisions taken by the General Assembly and the Bureau concerning the Symposium. In particular the ex officio member of the Scientific Committee (a member of the IUTAM Bureau) should be contacted as early as possible.

3. Confirmation of the host institution for the Symposium and a proposal for the precise date of the Symposium should be sent to the IUTAM Secretary-General at your earliest convenience and with the full support and knowledge of the Scientific Committee. The proposals are subject to approval by the Bureau.

4. In accordance with the resolutions adopted by the International Council of Science, (abbreviated ICSU; IUTAM is a member of ICSU), the selection of participants must be made on the basis of scientific merit only and you shall take all measures within your powers to ensure that there is no discrimination based on sex, nationality, race, religion or political philosophy.

5. Members of the General Assembly of IUTAM have the right to participate in any scientific meeting sponsored by IUTAM.

6. The registration fee for the Symposium, including the cost of a copy of the proceedings (see VI of the, Guidelines, below), must not exceed 350 US Dollars.

7. Beginning with the year 1998, the procedure for allocating IUTAM grants has been changed and an IUTAM grant may no longer be automatically assured. In the event that an IUTAM grant is allocated, the Treasurer of IUTAM should be advised, no later than two months before the Symposium takes place, to whom and into which bank account the IUTAM grant is to be paid.

8. The IUTAM grant allocated for the Symposium is available to help those participants who are unable to obtain full reimbursement from other sources. The grant can be used only to refund travel and subsistence costs of these participants and no part of the grant can be spent for other purposes. At the discretion of the Scientific Committee, IUTAM travel grants may be promised to certain participants in advance but no advance payments may be effected.

Claims for reimbursement must be submitted to you during the Symposium and not later. The Scientific Committee may decide on appropriate contributions if the total amount of such claims exceeds the IUTAM grant. Receipts should be obtained in respect of all grants made.

Immediately after the Symposium you should send all receipts received from the grantees to the Treasurer of IUTAM together with a list containing the name and the home country of the recipients. If the grant has not been fully used the remaining part should be returned together with the receipts.

9. Shortly after the Symposium you should send to the Secretary-General a written report (formatted text on diskette using any major word processing package would be much appreciated) with the following entries:

a. Scientific Committee

b. Short summary of scientific progress achieved

c. Countries represented and number of participants

d. Publication of Proceedings of the Symposium

e. Financial support

f. Scientific program

I. As soon as possible, the Scientific Committee should define the scope of the Symposium within the guidelines given by the title and the general outline approved by the General Assembly.

II. The main responsibility of the Scientific Committee is the selection of invited participants. It is important to locate the best and most active scientists in the field. Special effort should be made to identify and invite promising young people. This may be done on the basis of personal knowledge and recommendations, on the basis of recent publications and/or with the help of papers or abstracts of papers sent to the Scientific Committee upon a call for papers.

The number of invited participants is entirely the choice of the Scientific Committee. To achieve the aims, as mentioned in the introduction, it is however recommended to keep this number below 100. The number of oral presentations (lectures) should be kept below 25 for a three day symposium or 40 for a five day symposium. Some sessions may be devoted to visual presentations (poster/seminar presentation sessions). In all cases parallel sessions must be avoided.

You may feel free to include a local group of young scientists and students that are not necessarily active in the particular field of the Symposium.

III. The Chairmen of IUTAM Symposia are encouraged to develop a symposium website. The IUTAM website administrator offers on special request a template for a symposium website, linked to the IUTAM website.

IV. To improve intercommunication, name tags (with generous printing) and a list indicating in which hotel each participant is staying, should be distributed to all participants. It is also advisable to have an arrangement by which participants can leave messages for each other.

V. It is the policy of IUTAM not to enforce the use of any one language for the presentation of papers. You may feel free however to make a recommendation. VI. Experience in a number of symposia has shown that the effectiveness of discussion may be considerably increased, if all speakers are urged to bring (or send in advance) an adequate number of copies of the text of their lectures for distribution to all participants. However the Proceedings should not be published in advance of the Symposium. Presentation and discussion of a paper at the Symposium is a necessary condition for its consideration for publication in the Proceedings (see VII).

VII. The Proceedings of the Symposium must be published under the title "IUTAM Symposium on ..." and it is advisable to plan the publication at an early date, normally by contacting Kluwer Academic Publishers, the official designated publisher of IUTAM Proceedings. The contract details for the publication of the Proceedings should be discussed advance of the Symposium as Kluwer gives a subsidy of 1000 Dutch Guilders towards the costs of organizing the Symposium.

i. All papers included in the Proceedings of the Symposium are subject to review, with the aim of achieving a standard of the Proceedings that is comparable to the standard of refereed journals in the field.

ii. The chairman of the Symposium shall appoint, after discussion with the ex officio member of the Scientific Committee, two or more members of the Scientific Committee as reviewers. In order to arrange for a speedy process, as far as possible, the review process shall take place "on site", i.e. during the Symposium.

iii. For a speedy review process standard review forms shall be used.

iv. The review documents, e.g. the standard review forms, shall be sent together with the manuscripts to the editors of the Kluwer book series " Solid Mechanics and Its Applications" and " Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications", respectively, unless otherwise agreed (e.g. out of series publication).The procedure of cooperation between the book series editor and the Symposium organizer shall be discussed at an early a stage as possible---- in any case well before the Symposium starts. Because IUTAM and Kluwer aim at publication within a year after the the Symposium has taken place, it is recommended that the final approved manuscript be submitted to the Publisher not much later than half a year after the Symposium.

An integral part of the agreement with Kluwer is that a free copy of the Proceedings should be sent to the eight members of the Bureau and to the IUTAM Secretariat. Kluwer arranges this. In the event of publication of the Proceedings by publishers other than Kluwer, then you, the Chairman, should please arrange that a copy be sent to each member of the Bureau and to the IUTAM Secretariat.