Report on the 45th AAPPS Video Council Meeting by AAPPS

AAPPS

The 45th Council Meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) was held online from 2:00 p.m. to 4:03 p.m. KST (Korea Standard Time) on March 3, 2021, via Zoom session hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The participants were Jun'ichi Yokoyama (president), Hyoung Joon Choi (vice president), Nobuko Naka (secretary), Keun-Young Kim (treasurer), Gui-Lu Long (ex officio member as a former president), and council members Tao Xiang (the Chinese Physical Society (CPS)), Mio Murao (the Physical Society of Japan (JPS)), Kurunathan Ratnavelu (Malaysian Institute of Physics), Fu-Jen Kao (the Physical Society located in Taipei), and Meng-Fan Luo (the Physical Society located in Taipei).

The meeting was observed by Eunjeong Lee (AAPPS liaison officer). Council members Jodie Bradby (Australian Institute of Physics (AIP)), Xiu-dong Sun (CPS), Akira Yamada (the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)), Rajadeep Singh Rawat (Institute of Physics Singapore), Ruiqin Zhang (the Physical Society of Hong Kong), Woo-Sung Jung (KPS, APCTP), and Nguyen Quang Liem (Vietnam Physical Society) were absent.

(1) Secretary Naka reported the presence of 10 council members out of 17 members, and the quorum was not fulfilled. It was confirmed that the minutes of this council meeting should be circulated by email for approval.

(2) President Yokoyama opened the 45th Council Meeting and welcomed the participants. The agenda was adopted as prepared by the president.

(3) Vice President Choi explained the proposal of providing one-time support to the Division of Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP). He stated that this one-time support would be separate from the annual support to DCMP and could be used for preparing their website, their first division meeting, and whatever else they might need, without submission of receipts. Typically, when a new division has been established, the AAPPS Council has provided one-time support to the division. Previously, support of $2,000 USD was provided to the Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) in 2015, to the Division of Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Gravitation (DACG) in 2016, and to the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) in 2017. In 2015 and 2016, the financial support for the two divisions was allocated from donations by APCTP, which had no specific limits for its use. Vice President Choi was unsure about the source of the one-time support to DNP in 2017. Considering that the foundation of another new division, i.e., the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF), is underway, the coordination of one-time support to DPF also will become necessary soon. The AAPPS membership fees that have not been used in the past 2 or 3 years could be used to provide one-time support to DCMP.

Choi asked about the financial balance of AAPPS this year, and Lee stated that it is $52,820 USD. Choi confirmed that we have a carryover of $50,000-$60,000 USD this year, in addition to the donation from the Leo Koguan Foundation. Yokoyama stated that the financial aspects of providing one-time support do not cause any problems for the sustainable operation of the association and the present proposal by Choi is reasonable. As for the annual support to division activities from APCTP amounting to 30M KRW, the AAPPS Council already decided to financially support DCMP more, in the first year, than the three other already existent divisions.

The proposal was approved by the present council members. Yokoyama asked Choi to discuss with the DCMP chair how to transfer the money, if the absent members support the proposal.

(4) Kao, the chair of the selection committee of the CN Yang Award 2020 reported on the preparations for the CN Yang Award 2021. First, the timeline for the selection process was introduced. The call for nominations was made on February 26th last year, so the next announcement will be sent to individual societies and APPC14 participants soon after being approved in this council meeting. Second, Kao explained the two-step selection process. APCTP sends the nominees' information to the AAPPS divisions for prescreening. Nominations unrelated to AAPPS divisions are reviewed by the sub-selection committee. By June 18th last year, the preselection results of the sub-selection committee were submitted to the selection committee. The selection committee finalizes three awardees. In 2021, we will have maximally 12 recommendations from four divisions and several recommendations from the sub-selection committee at the final phase after prescreening. Third, Kao proposed amendments to the rules. The major proposed changes are as follows: (i) AAPPS divisions can nominate up to three candidates. We would have an option to invite selection committee members external to the AAPPS Council if they were approved by the council. [*Note: We wish to continue the discussion on amendment (i), and the new nomination channel is supposed to be open starting in 2022.] (ii) For reference information, a provision of citation numbers is preferred. This is intended to be used for the relative positioning of a nominee within the same specific field and not for comparison among nominees in different categories. (iii) The maximum number of nominations after prescreening by each AAPPS division has been increased from one to three. (iv) The maximum number of selection committee members has been increased from 9 to 12. A division sending a member to the selection committee should have at least one nominee.

Kao added that we have already discussed these issues in the council meeting held last December, and that we need to shift the rules to simply reflect the changes according to the increasing number of divisions. Xiang mentioned that the physical societies of each country/region and APPC participants can also make nominations. Yokoyama added that we should be proud that the selection process for the CN Yang Award is highly sophisticated and accurate. Kao added that experts of each division carefully examine how much contribution is made by a candidate if the candidate is one of many authors of a group work. To confirm the amendments of the rules and the timeline for this year, Xiang proposed to ask for approval of all the council members, not just the participants of this online meeting. Yokoyama summarized that approval was obtained from the present council members. He proposed that Kao remains as the selection committee chair for one more year until his 3-year term is fulfilled; he has already served as the chair for the past 2 years. This proposal was also approved by the present council members. Kao responded that he would try his best to have the selection process be completed in a timely and orderly manner.

(5) Choi stated that the start of scientific sessions at APPC15 is scheduled for 22 August 2022 in Gyeongju, Korea. The number of rooms for the conference will be similar to that of APPC14. Regarding the timeline, the first announcement will be made by June 30th, 2021, which is 14 months before the conference.

Choi started a discussion on how to form the committees for APPC15. Long recommended Xiang as one of the two deputy chairs of the organizing committee and the co-chair of the program committee. Xiang accepted this recommendation. Yokoyama mentioned that most of the past APPCs have been held in the country/region where the AAPPS president was located. This was not the case for APPC14 and APPC15. Prof. Long, the president at that time, was the chair of the advisory committee for APPC14. At the APPC held in Australia, the AIP president served as the chair of the organizing committee. Choi proposed for the advisory committee to be chaired by the AAPPS president, and the organizing committee to be co-chaired by the KPS president and AAPPS president, and that he would volunteer as the chair of the program committee. Yokoyama mentioned that he can sit on only one chair at one time and proposed that Choi take a more prominent position, namely, the chair of the organizing committee. It was agreed that we would wait for the internal discussions in KPS to take place before discussing the matter further.

Yokoyama also suggested for Yamada from JSAP and a member from the Physical Society located in Taipei to be co-chairs of the program committee, whose expertise is not covered by the AAPPS divisions. Jung was recommended to become the chair of the local organizing committee as Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) is close to the conference venue. To summarize, the following members were temporally suggested.

*Advisory Committee Chairs: Current AAPPS president, APCTP president

*Organizing Committee Chair: KPS president

*Organizing Committee Deputy Chairs: Hyoung Joon Choi, Tao Xiang

*Program Committee Chair: Hyoung Joon Choi

*Program Committee Co-chairs: Tao Xiang, Akira Yamada, Fu-Jen Kao

*Local Organizing Committee Chair: Woo-Sung Jung

*Local Organizing Committee Members: Hyoung Joon Choi, Keun-Young Kim, Korean researchers

Choi explained that this event will be held by AAPPS and KPS. He will discuss with the KPS president to know if KPS would directly commit. Afterwards, he will discuss with President Yokoyama and circulate the list of members by email.

Yokoyama asked how many plenary talks are planned. Choi answered that we will follow the APPC14 schedule but will not invite a Nobel laureate. We need to discuss and finalize the list of plenary speakers in 2 or 3 months. The list will be distributed by email. Yokoyama mentioned that he hopes the four divisions will play leading roles by programming talks in their respective areas of expertise for this event. Choi stated that we assume that COVID-19 will end this winter or at least next spring, before APPC15. Changing the schedule is not a good idea and switching the events to an online format should be considered, in case the need should arise. The deadline to decide whether the conference is going to be held in person or online would probably be 3 months prior to APPC15, as dictated by the cancellation rules for booking the hotel and convention center. Choi will confirm the deposit as any financial loss should be avoided. Concerning the financial aspect of the conference, no support will be provided for invited speakers. Ratnavelu stated that at APPS14, the registration fee was $500 USD and two meals were included in the package of $40 USD per day for one participant.

Choi summarized that we will proceed with the preparations for APPC15, in close discussions with KPS.

(6) Long, the editor-in-chief of the AAPPS Bulletin (AB), reported on the status of AB and his thoughts. As a brief history, he introduced past five editor-in-chiefs, the first issue published in June 1991, and a memorandum regarding AB between KPS, APCTP, and AAPPS. There were some changes during the term (2017-middle 2020) of the former editor-in-chief, Prof. Motobayashi, who added a new section called "Review and Research". This year, cooperation with Springer Nature began and five articles were already published.

Long emphasized that journals are the banners for associations. AAPPS performs poorly in this aspect compared to its counterparts in America and Europe, although AAPPS supports APPC, the CN Yang Awards, and division activities. In Google Scholar Citations, only 27 papers were cited among 132 papers published in AB. The ideal new format of AB is a comprehensive journal, similar to Nature, Science, and Science Bulletin. The number of publications is supposed to be 30 or less than 100 per year, which is a small portion compared to the thousands of articles published in a specialized journal or a member society journal.

Long explained that cooperation with Springer Nature was one of the three options. The editorial board was reorganized and the new sections, "News and Views" and "Research and Review", were launched. The AB ranking, intended to compensate for the discontinued section "Institutes in Asia Pacific", was decided to be cancelled after consultation with senior editors. The tasks of AB are to increase the quality of papers, to publish more research highlights, to get indexed in databases, to increase its impact factor, and to increase the number of issues (from 6 to 12 in 6-7 years) as a world-leading physics journal. Long said that in order to achieve these goals we need to act now, and asked the presenting council members to agree with the position of AB.

Ratnavelu asked if the cooperation with Springer Nature was proposed or decided. Long answered that the contract was already made. Yokoyama added that the agreement was inappropriately signed, so that it could not work as an official document of AAPPS. According to the report, the article processing charge (APC) should be paid and AAPPS cannot sustain this new style in cooperation with the publishing company. The contract is for 5 years, while the Korean government promised to provide support only for 1 year, namely on an annual basis. The government will continue to provide support as long as the journal is performing well. APCTP was trying to obtain extra funding to launch the new style, and the APCTP president is correcting the situation. Long added that if APCTP cannot support the APC anymore, it could be managed by the AAPPS Bulletin's independent account for 2 years. Yokoyama informed that a meeting is going to be held to explain the situation to five member societies supporting the AB. Long voiced that the journal itself should be a leading journal. Editors from member societies are trying hard to collect papers, and in particular, the nuclear physics and the accelerator field have done an excellent job. These new articles are published in the previous style as well, and are citable with the volume number plus single-digit article number or the digital object identifier (DOI). There are now two websites for AB; the new one is managed by Springer Nature while the old one maintained by APCTP will also continue.

Kao commented on the advantages of cooperation with Elsevier. In the case of an editorial in Taipei, journal citations dramatically increased after cooperation with Elsevier. Many citations started to come from bundled journals and a network of heavy citations is promoted with the increased number of submissions. The contract with Elsevier was free for the first 6 years. The journal is already in Q2 category and making a profit which could be shared. K.Y. Kim was curious about promotion and asked whether Elsevier has a good strategy. Kao stated that the promotion impact can increase very quickly with the right combination of a journal and a publisher. Long mentioned that Springer Nature also has promotion measures and the articles are freely accessible; thus, he believes a large change will occur in the 3 years to come.

(7) President Yokoyama announced that a forthcoming council meeting is planned to be held in Hong Kong in December. He noted that we should carefully examine the possibility of having the meeting in person. He proposed to have the next online council meeting in summer and closed the meeting.