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FST&TCS

The 35th Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FST&TCS) conference will be held in Bangalore this year. This is the pan India theory conference, which has been around for the last 35 years and has gained reasonable repute in the theory community.

As a graduate student from India, who started her PhD in 2003, I attended the conference almost every year from 2004 to 2009. Later on too, I have been trying to attend the conference every time possible. For me, this has always been a place to meet many Indian theorists, meet many theorists from Europe and a few from the USA, listen to beautiful talks, attend a grand banquet dinner and basically have a great time!

After my many years of close connection with the conference as a researcher who has had many of her works accepted and many of her works rejected at the conference :), this year for the first time I am in the PC of the conference. It gives be a great delight to be an integral part of this conference.

In comparison to the other comparable conference, e.g. STACS and MFCS, FST&TCS has been battling with many odds.
  • Timing: The weather in India is the best during December and therefore this is the month in which the conference takes place. Though many international participants really enjoy this, there are many who do not even submit their papers here because they do not wish to travel in December.
  • Lack of spill over effect: The conference submission deadline is usually mid July (keeping in mind the December dates). There are no other big conferences which have their notification just before this. As a result, good quality rejected papers of say STOC/FOCS/ICALP/SODA etc. find their way into other conferences which have deadlines close to the notification of these conferences. For example, MFCS submission deadline is usually immediately after ICALP.
  • The other side of the planet: For researchers in the USA, attending this conference involves a long travel and therefore more time and more expenses. Unless you are an NRI who anyway wishes to come to India, you will probably not take the effort to attend this conference. On the other hand, many researchers from Europe attend this event and also plan their calendar around this Indian visit. 
The word of mouth is that, the conference is very highly ranked among theory B researchers, however, not so much among the theory A researchers. Could it be because,  many Europeans submit their best works in FST&TCS and Europe is the center of great Theory B work, and therefore the conference is very well regarded in the theory B community? On the other hand, it is still not on the radar of top theory A researchers from USA, which is undoubtedly the center of foundational theory A work for the past few decades?

Unfortunately, the geographical disadvantages are impossible to overcome and I think timing of the conference is also hard to change, given the weather conditions. Would the conference be benefited by shifting the submission deadline?

I hope many people do submit exciting results in theory A to FST&TCS this year. I am looking forward to getting busy reading exciting new results in algorithms and complexity!




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