SIGIR NEWS

Letter from the Chair
Vanessa Murdock
AmazonUSAvmurdock@acm.org

Greetings SIGIR Members! The new Executive Committee (Ryen White, Vice Chair;
Carsten Eickhoff,Treasurer; Laura Dietz, Secretary; and Ben Carterette, Past Chair) is
completing its first year of service. This year was an interesting year, as we emerge from theCovid times with new challenges.
Post-Covid, the economy has changed and the cost of putting on conferences has increased
substantially, while attendance is still reduced for various reasons (people less able to travel due tohealth and visa concerns). We would like to keep the cost of attending the conference affordable
for everyone, and avoid policies that increase the cost to authors to help conferences break even.
As a community we have some choices to make, because although the SIG is currently financiallyhealthy, it cannot sustain losses year on year. Choosing less expensive locations will reduce theoverall venue cost, in addition to generally lower costs for hotel rooms, restaurants, flights, etc.
Increasing local events on a smaller scale reduces environmental impact, in addition to providing
an affordable gathering.
This year, Tetsuya Sakai and Paul Thomas graciously volunteered to serve as the firstsustainability chairs, looking for ways the SIG can reduce environmental costs. By far our biggest
environmental impact is from members’ travel to events, however these events are hugely important
for research and for career progression, especially for newer researchers. Tetsuya and Paul will
therefore start with mitigating the environmental cost of putting on the conferences, by asking
conference bidders and organisers to include an estimated carbon budget, as well as a plan toreduce emissions (such as by reducing travel and by selecting providers with an eye on pollution).
In the medium term they plan to encourage environmentally thoughtful IR research, by working on
review criteria and rewards for “greener” research, and looking for less polluting ways to participate
in the community. Please reach out to Tetsuya or Paul with any ideas and suggestions.
In the interest of less polluting ways to exchange ideas, a new initiative, proposed by Suzan
Verberne and Ebrahim Bagheri, is a series of Virtual Forums on topics related to SIGIR. The
proposal was submitted in January, endorsed by many in the community, and enthusiasticallysupported by the Executive Committee. As part of the planning, organizers reached out toSIGIR China, Student groups, Women in IR groups, SIGIR Japan and others. During ECIR,
they presented the Virtual Forum to the community and received feedback. The planning is inprogress, with a steering committee chosen, chaired by Suzan. The first sessions will be announced
on social media, IRList, and on the sigir.org website.
In the coming year, we look forward to the launch of the Virtual Forum, and the integrationof sustainability best practices. We will launch a new sigir.org website, highlighting upcoming
ACM SIGIR Forum1Vol. 57 No. 1 – June 2023

events, and members of the SIGIR community. The coming year will continue focus on reducing
the cost of conference attendance, and ramp up plans for improving the peer review process.
We would like to thank the volunteers who are the backbone of SIGIR. In addition to thefolks mentioned above, we would like to thank Alistair Moffat, who chairs the SIGIR Academy,Awards Chairs Hannah Bast and Gianluca Demartini, recently joined by Mark Sanderson.
We would also like to thank Rob Capra who is chairing the Early Career Research Awards committee, Maria Maistro and Qingyao Ai who joined Jiaxin Mao as Student Affairs Chairs,
Sole Pera who is serving as Student Travel Chair, and Bhaskar Mitra who is the Community
Relations Coordinator, the point of contact for folks who want to set up a meeting or gathering at
one of the conferences. We would like to also thank volunteers who are continuing to serve the community in their roles: DEI Chairs Hussein Suleman and Suzan Verberne, Nazli Goharianas the Women in IR chair, Nattiya Kanhabua and Guido Zuccon continue as the Information
Directors, Donna Harman as the SIGIR Historian, SIGIR Forum Editors Tirthankar Ghosal,
Josiane Mothe, and Julian Urbano. As always, if you are interested in volunteering, please
let the Executive Committee know.
Vanessa MurdockChair, ACM SIGIR Executive Committee

ACM SIGIR Forum2Vol. 57 No. 1 – June 2023