# IAPR TC-11 (Reading Systems) Newsletter ## September, 2023 **Online, phone-friendly version:** [September 2023 Newsletter](http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=IAPR_TC11_Newsletter_2023_09) **TC-11:** [TC-11 Homepage](http://www.iapr-tc11.org)    **Twitter:** [iapr_tc11](https://twitter.com/iapr_tc11) ### TABLE OF CONTENTS - Message from the Editor - Dates and Deadlines - Deadlines - Upcoming Conferences and Events - Open Call for Organizing DAR Events - DAS 2024: Call for Proposals - Call for Nominations for the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award - SSDA 2023 Report - Call for Hosting Proposals: ICDAR 2027 - Datasets - TC11 Datasets Repository - Where to share datasets Message from the Editor ======================= Dear TC11 members, It's September! I hope getting back to the salt mines has not been too hard for you after the summer break and events. In this issue you will find several calls for organizing our major DAR events that will be held in the coming years: DAS 2024, GREC 2025, SSDA 2025 and of course ICDAR 2027. The call for nominations for the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award for ICDAR 2024 is also in this issue with December 15th as a deadline. We would also like to share with you reports on our recent successful events. In this issue you will find a report on the SSDA 2023 with interesting information. In the next newsletter issues we will publish a full ICDAR 2023 report, a report on HIP 2023 along with information on the next HIPs, and a report on ScalDoc 2023 workshop. Please make sure you check the very near deadlines (October to December this year), and if you haven't yet, start preparing for the different ICDAR 2024 submissions. **Nibal Nayef, TC11 Communication Officer** ( ) **Join us!** If you are not already a member of the TC11 community, please consider joining the [TC11 mailing list](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=iapr-tc11&A=1). **Follow us on Twitter (iapr\_tc11):** Dates and Deadlines =================== Deadlines --------- **2023** - **October 31** proposal submission for ICDAR 2024 competitions, workshops & tutorials - **November 30** proposal submission for hosting DAS 2024 - **December 15** Nominations due for the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award **2024** - **January 31** proposal submission for hosting ICDAR 2027 Upcoming Conferences and Events ------------------------------- **2023 and 2024** - [ACPR 2023](https://ericlab.org/acpr2023/). Kitakyushu, Japan (November 5-8, 2023) - [ICDAR 2024](https://icdar2024.net/). Athens, Greece (August 30 - September 4, 2024) - [ICPR 2024](https://icpr2024.org/). Kolkata, India (December 01-05, 2024) Open Call for Organizing DAR Events =================================== The IAPR technical committees on graphics recognition (TC10) and reading systems (TC11) are regularly organizing scientific events for the Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) community, including the ICDAR flagship conference. In addition to specific calls for bids to host one of the events, we encourage teams to announce their interest in organizing one of the following events: - **ICDAR**: International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (annually; next possibility in **2027**) - **DAS**: International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (satellite event of ICDAR in even years; next possibility in **2024**) - **GREC**: International Workshop on Graphics Recognition (satellite event of ICDAR in odd years; next possibility in **2025**) - **SSDA**: Summer School on Document Analysis (biannually in odd years; next possibility in **2025**) Anyone interested in hosting one of these events is invited to announce their interest via email to and , in order to receive feedback and support for preparing a proposal. **Jean-Christophe Burie (Chair, TC10)** **Andreas Fischer (Chair, TC11)** DAS 2024: Call for Proposals ============================ Deadline: November 30, 2023 Submission Method: email to and Document Analysis Systems (DAS) is an IAPR sponsored workshop focusing on system-level issues and approaches. In DAS 2022, it was decided by the participants to hold DAS as a satellite workshop with annual ICDAR starting from 2024 onwards. We are seeking proposals to host the 16th Document Analysis Systems workshop co-located with ICDAR in 2024. Anyone interested in submitting a proposal to host DAS 2024 in Greece should drop an email to and by November 30, 2023. We are looking forward to receiving high quality proposals and making the first chapter of DAS-ICDAR 2024 a big success! **Jean-Christophe Burie (Chair, TC10)** **Andreas Fischer (Chair, TC11)** Call for Nominations for the IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award ================================================================ **Important Dates** Nominations Due: December 15, 2023 The IAPR/ICDAR Award Program is an established program designed to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of Document Analysis and Recognition in one or more of the following areas: - Research - Training of students - Research/Industry interaction - Service to the community There are two awards categories, which have been presented together bi-annually in the past: The *Young Investigator Award* (less than 40 years old at the time the award is made) and the *Outstanding Achievements Award*. Because of the new yearly schedule of ICDAR, the two categories will alternate in odd and even years. For ICDAR 2024, nominations are invited for the following award category: - **IAPR/ICDAR Young Investigator Award** The award will consist of a token gift and a suitably inscribed certificate. The recipient will be invited to give the opening keynote speech at the ICDAR 2024 conference, introduced by the previous recipient of the award. The nomination pack should include the following: 1. A nominating letter (1 page) including a brief citation to be included in the certificate. 2. Supporting letters (1 page each) from 3 active researchers from at least 3 different countries. A nomination is usually put forward by a researcher (preferably from a different institution than the nominee) who is knowledgeable of the scientific achievements of the nominee, and who organizes letters of support. The submission procedure is strictly confidential, and self-nominations are not allowed. Please send nominations packs electronically to the TC10/11 chairs: **Andreas Fischer ** and **Jean-Christophe Burie **. The deadline for receiving nominations is December 15, 2023 but early submissions are strongly encouraged. SSDA 2023 Report ================ We are happy to announce that the 5th IAPR TC10/TC11 Summer School on Document Analysis (SSDA) was a great success! It took place from July 3 to 7, 2023 in Fribourg and Moléson, Switzerland. 21 PhD students and young researchers from 8 different countries benefited from high-quality lectures by experts in the field: - Apostolos Antonacopoulos, University of Salford, United Kingdom, "Large-scale Recognition of Information-rich Documents: From Unreadable Data to Structured Information" - Jean-Christophe Burie, University of La Rochelle, France, "Analysis and understanding of comics: From the detection of basic elements to the creation of semantic links with classic and deep learning-based approaches" - Gernot Fink, TU Dortmund University, Germany, "Deep Learning for Word Spotting: Foundations and Current Developments" - Andreas Fischer, University of Fribourg and University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, "Structural methods for document analysis and recognition: From rule-based models to data-driven deep learning" - Alicia Fornes, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and CVC, Spain, "Handwriting Recognition in Low Resource Scenarios" - C.V. Jawahar, III-T Hyderabad, India, "Towards a deeper understanding of documents" - Koichi Kise, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan, "Reading of Reading for Actuating: Augmenting Human Learning by Experiential Supplements" - Rich Kent, CTO of Taina, UK, "You can't hide from tax anymore!, A real world example of how one company has used document analysis and recognition to change the tax industry" The videos of some lectures will be available soon on the website: https://ssda2023.isc.heia-fr.ch/. Alongside the courses, participants were able to actively take part during a pitch and a poster session. A handwriting recognition competition was also held. Many social activities, scientific exchanges and campfires were organized, helping to create and/or strengthen links between participants. Congratulations to ***Marco Peers***, TU Vienna, who won the best poster award and the prize for excellence. Finally, we would like to thank all the organizers and sponsors who made this event possible. Special thanks to IAPR for funding 4 grants and reducing accommodation costs for students. Thanks to DIVA, DIUF, Centenary Fund from University of Fribourg and HEIA for their financial and administrative contributions. Thank you to the speakers for your time and knowledge sharing. See you soon for the 6th edition! Anna Scius-Bertrand, SSDA 2023 organizing committee. Call for Hosting Proposals: ICDAR 2027 ====================================== Deadline: January 31, 2024 Submission Method: Email to the TC10/11 chairs Andreas Fischer and Jean-Christophe Burie The International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR) is the flagship event of TC10/11. It has been established as a bi-annual conference in 1991 and is now held annually, starting 2023. The aim of ICDAR is to bring together international experts to share their experiences and to promote research and development in all areas of Document Analysis and Recognition. The ICDAR Advisory Board is seeking proposals to host the 21st International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition, to be held in 2027 (ICDAR 2027). Any consortium interested in making a proposal to host an ICDAR should first familiarize themselves with the "Guidelines for Organizing and Bidding to Host ICDAR" document which is available on the TC10 and TC11 websites ( and , respectively). A link to the most current version of the guidelines appears below. Please check on the website of TC11 for the latest version. *Note that the current guidelines still refer to a bi-annual event. An updated version is coming soon that will reflect the change to an annual conference.* The submission of a bid implies full agreement with the rules and procedures outlined in that document. The submitted proposal must define clearly the items specified in the guidelines (Section 5.2). It has been the tradition that the location of ICDAR conferences follows a rotating schedule among different continents. Hence, proposals from the Americas are strongly encouraged. However, high quality bids from other locations, for example, from countries where we have had no ICDAR before, will also be considered. Proposals will be examined by the ICDAR Advisory Board. Proposals should be emailed to the TC10/11 chairs Andreas Fischer and Jean-Christophe Burie by January 31, 2024. **ICDAR Advisory Board,** **Andreas Fischer (Chair, TC11), Jean-Christophe Burie (Chair, TC10), Anna Esposito (Chair, IAPR C&M), Koichi Kise, Dimosthenis Karatzas, Srirangaraj Setlur** Datasets ======== TC11 Datasets Repository ------------------------ ### Where to share datasets Did you know it? We have two official places for datasets: - Our historical platform for storage and listing: http://datasets.iapr-tc11.org - A Zenodo community (if you choose to submit your datasets there): https://zenodo.org/communities/iapr-tc11 TC11 maintains a collection of datasets that can be found online in the [TC11 Datasets Repository](http://www.iapr-tc11.org/mediawiki/index.php/Datasets). If you have new datasets (e.g., from competitions) that you wish to share with the research community, please use the [online upload form](http://tc11.cvc.uab.es/upload/). For questions and support, please contact the TC11 Dataset Curator (contact information is below). **Joseph Chazalon (TC11 Dataset Curator)** ( ) Contributions and Subscriptions ================================== **Call for Contributions:** To contribute news items, please send a short email to the editor, [Nibal Nayef](mailto:n.nayef@gmail.com). Contributions might include conference and workshop announcements or reports, job opportunities, book reviews, or anything else of interest to the TC11 community. **Subscription:** This newsletter is sent to subscribers of the IAPR TC11 mailing list. To join the TC11 mailing list, please click on [this link](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=iapr-tc11&A=1). To manage your subscription, please visit the [mailing list homepage](https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=IAPR-TC11). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IAPR TC11 HOMEPAGE: [http://www.iapr-tc11.org](http://www.iapr-tc11.org) The IAPR is the International Association for Pattern Recognition. IAPR's Technical Committee No. 11 (TC11) includes researchers and practitioners working with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and more generally the analysis and recognition of information in documents.