The 2019 MICCAI conference will be held in Shenzhen, China. The conference will host a variety of workshops, challenges, and tutorials. Challenges have become an integral part of MICCAI conferences in the past years. Their aim is to provide a fair and direct comparison of different methodological solutions to a common problem. Challenges should address a well-defined open problem relevant to the MICCAI, provide high-quality data for testing/training algorithms, and define a clear assessment procedure. Examples of topics from previous challenges include, but are not limited to, segmentation, registration, computer-aided detection and diagnosis, endoscopic vision, and brain connectivity.
The sessions may be designed as oral/poster presentations of the results each participant achieved prior to the conference and/or hands-on competitions during the event. The MICCAI supports open data; hence, we encourage the organizers to use open source data licenses and/or keep the challenge open to submissions beyond the conference, providing a sustained platform for benchmarking.
Challenges will take place on October 13 and 17, 2019. All events will be located at the main conference venue. Each challenge may be organized as a half-day (8:00am-12:30pm or 1:30pm-5:00pm) or a full-day (8:00am-5:00pm) meeting. The reserved rooms that are available will be listed on the MICCAI 2019 website (www.miccai2019.org).
Submission Details
According to a recent study investigating all challenges in biomedical image analysis to date, the reproduction, comparisons, and adequate interpretation of challenge results are often not possible, because only a fraction of relevant information was reported. To address this issue, we continue implementing an online platform for challenge proposal submissions with structured descriptions of challenge protocols. The submission system is based on ontology for structured reporting of validation studies and challenges currently developed in collaboration with multiple institutions worldwide.
The framework will ensure the completeness of the information for a high-quality challenge review, as well as a structured access to the challenge information in the future. It may also help the authors improve the design of their challenge.
The proposal submission site starts accepting submissions on December 15, 2018. Proposal submissions are due on January 15, 2019.
The MICCAI Board Challenge Group and the MICCAI 2019 Satellite Event team are soliciting a podium session in the main conference. Challenge organizers who are interested to present key results of their upcoming challenges may indicate their willingness in their challenge submission. A formal application for a podium time will be announced later.
Selection Criteria
Due to the limited number of rooms available, and to maintain relevance to the conference participants, the submitted challenge proposals will be selected based on the following criteria:
- Potential scientific, economic and social impact;
- Expected interest in the topic by the MICCAI audience;
- Quality of the challenge design.
Proposals will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. The reviewers will be chosen based on their expertise in the area of a proposal. They will include at least one reviewer who has appropriate clinical expertise on the topic. They will provide feedback and assist the Challenge Organizing Committee in making a final decision.
To ensure a rich and diverse program, we reserve the right to ask the applicants of proposals with substantial overlaps to merge or alter their scopes. We also reserve the right to ask the applicants to provide supplementary materials and to revise their proposals in order to ensure the quality and standard of the MICCAI Challenges.
Copyright
Authors will assign to the MICCAI Society the right to distribute the challenge materials to MICCAI members and to challenge and conference attendees, independently of the copyright ownership planned by the challenge organizers. It is up to the challenge organizers to obtain corresponding agreement of the participants and, if necessary, consent from providers of data used in the challenge.
Budget
MICCAI 2019 will not pay for travel arrangements or stipends for the organizers of satellite events nor provide concessions on registration fees.
The MICCAI 2019 Satellite Events Committee has limited funds for waiving the registration fees for a number of speakers, including those from outside the MICCAI community. Organizers and speakers who plan only to attend the satellite event in which they are involved are expected to register for the event unless registration fee waivers have been requested and granted.
Important Dates
15 January 2019 Proposals due
22 January 2019 First round of feedback 11 February 2019 First round of feedback
19 March 2019 Final notification of acceptance
1 April 2019 Individual websites opening