It is very difficult to write this message and publish it. We have tried everything. But after a long period of evaluating scenarios and alternatives, it is now clear: REAL CORP 2020 will also take place as VIRTUAL CORP.

Why?

Unfortunately, the worldwide development of the Covid-19 pandemic has not yet calmed down, so that current strategies for action continue to impose massive restrictions:

• Space restrictions in lecture halls and access restrictions at RWTH Aachen do not allow a meaningful meeting of conference participants there.
• Travel warnings and limited international connections do not allow many participants to travel.
• Many institutions still do not allow business trips to conferences abroad.

From this point of view, the virtualisation of REAL CORP 2020 is the only feasible way to offer you as much as possible of the originally planned conference.

When?

The conference will take place as originally planned from 15 to 18 September 2020.

Where?

The conference is virtual and will take place wherever you are – at work, at home, in the park, ... on your PC, tablet or smartphone. There will be some real components; for example, we plan to gather the local CORP community in Aachen and Vienna to listen to presentations together, intensify the discussion and last but not least to offer local networking. In which form these real components will take place depends not least on the further development of the Covid-19 strategies and can therefore only be decided at a later stage. We will always keep you up to date.

How?

The procedure of CORP 2020 is based on the previous draft programme. There will be plenary sessions, keynotes and parallel sessions and discussion formats, all of which will be held virtually and will be available via a common platform to keep you informed.

Virtual Participation

If you want to join the virtual edition of REAL CORP 2020, please sign up at https://my.corp.at. Reduced tickets for virtual participation (one day: EUR 50, whole conference: EUR 90) are available until the end of August.

Presentations of REAL CORP 2020

All lectures of CORP 2020 will be held virtually. All lecture slots will be scheduled as listed in the conference programme. (Individual times may vary slightly.) Please note the following differences to a real lecture:

• Each presentation will be transmitted from a speaker's local workstation to all conference participants during a virtual meeting.
• Using the “split screen” function, the conference participants can see the presentation slides on their screens.
• Unlike in a real conference, it is more difficult to keep the attention of the audience and listeners for a longer period of time. Therefore, the presentations will be a little shorter, but this allows more time for discussion and interaction.

In between the lecture blocks there will be some sportive and musical interludes. We will also set up virtual discussion rooms where you will have the opportunity to make contact outside of the parallel sessions.

All paper have already been published in our conference proceedings at the original conference date (April 2020). Since some papers will be added due to the special call, there will be a supplement to the proceedings in September.