The third editions of the International Conferences on “Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism” and “Future Smart Cities” were held together in collaboration with the Xiamen University Malaysia in Malaysia, and took place virtually from the 14th to the 15th of November 2020, due to the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic.

The Conference focuses on how architecture and urban practices can make a transformative contribution at the neighborhood scale or rather the lived scale of buildings and everyday life. This conference will stimulate discussion on the theories of continuous change in cities and ideals and new pedagogies of resilient architecture. It brings together cross-disciplinary perspectives from urban design, architecture, geography, art, technology, and building science to open up multiple standpoints and opportunities for research, strategies, and projects on how local resilience can prepare us for major societal challenges.

Among the main topics discussed at the conference:

1- Computational Advancements in Future Smart Cities

2- The Path to Resiliency: Theory and Application

3- Challenges and Key Components for Developing Smart Cities

4- Resiliency for the Future

Day 1:

Welcoming Session:

The Opening Ceremony started with the online registration and welcoming speeches from the Conference Chair.

Short welcoming speeches were given by the conference chair Professor Huang Nay Ming, Professor of New Energy Science & Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, and Professor Zhang Ying, Assistant President, Xiamen University Malaysia.

Following the welcoming speeches, a Presentation about IEREK introducing IEREK as a company and its activities to the audience by Toka Amer, IEREK representative and Operations Manager at IEREK, Egypt.

Plenary session:

A plenary session followed introducing the first keynote speaker Prof. Hisham Elkadi, Dean of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of Salford, United Kingdom, whose speech was entitled: “Subjectification of Smart Urban”.

After the first keynote speech was the Second keynote speaker Prof. Jack Cheng, Director of Radio Frequency Identification Center and Associate Director of GREAT Smart Cities Institute in (HKUST) Hong Kong, University of Science and Technology, whose speech was entitled: “Digital Twin based on BIM-IoT Integration for Smart Campus at HKUST”

Following the second keynote speech was the third keynote speaker Prof. Cheng Wang, Professor of computer science, School of Informatics, Xiamen University Malaysia, whose speech was entitled: “Indoor 3D Mapping for Future Smart Cities”

After the keynote speech starts the First Session of the conference titled “Computational Advancements in Future Smart Cities”. The session was moderated by Dr. Norlida binti Mohd, Deputy director & UNESCO head of coordination HTC KUALA LUMPUR, and Prof. Huang Nay Ming, Professor of New Energy Science & Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia. The session had five presentations before a short break.

Following the short break was the fourth Keynote Speaker Prof. Rob Roggema, Professor of Sustainable Spatial Transformations at Hanze University Groningen, The Netherlands, whose speech was entitled: “Landscape at heart: resilience and adaptation by design”.

The Second Session entitled “The Path to Resiliency: Theory and Application” then started and was moderated by Dr. Vincent Woon, Assistant Professor of New Energy Science & Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, and Dr. Al-ani Ahmed Khallel Ibrahim, Xiamen University Malaysia. four presentations were discussed during the second session and concluded on the first day of the Conference.

Day 2:

The second day of the conference started with the speeches of the keynote speaker, Prof. Han Wang, Associate Professor, School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, with a speech entitled: “Computer vision in unmanned bus driving”.

After the keynote speech, the Third Session titled “Challenges and Key Components for Developing Smart Cities”, which is moderated by Dr. Norlida binti Mohd, Deputy director & UNESCO head of coordination HTC KUALA LUMPUR, and Dr. Mohammed Alswaitti, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Xiamen University Malaysia. The third session discussed seven presentations before a short break.

Following the short break was the Fourth Session of the conference titled” Resiliency for the Future” and it was moderated by Professor. Hugo Rodriguez, Associated Professor, University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Dr. Miraz Mahdi Hassan, Xiamen University Malaysia. Five presentations were discussed during the Fourth session. A discussion and a Questions and Answers session followed, and the Conference was concluded by a Panel session where final remarks and feedback were discussed.

An International Conference from the Comfort of Your Own Home!

Due to the uncertainties and restrictions inflicted by the #COVID19 pandemic, and for everyone's safety following the Health Organization's recommendations, it is in everyone's interest to host the conference online. As pioneers of this movement, IEREK is proud to be hosting this conference online. IEREK believes that rather than giving in to this disease and stopping our progress, pushing forward is of utmost importance.

So, how can participating in an international Video Conference boost your career, future potentials, and experience?

• Obtain an internationally accredited certification of participation which could boost your future academic career opportunities.
• Save costs of travel & accommodation.
• Discuss your research paper online with professors, stakeholders, and other authors (Online Oral Presentation).
• Get the chance to publish your paper with Springer in the ASTI Book Series.
• Make sure that your paper will get the maximum exposure in front of a relevant audience, as we share samples of publications within our weekly newsletter and online platforms.

About the RRAU 3rd Edition:

Vulnerable by design, our cities are now facing the challenge of adaptability, brought on by rapid urbanization, global pandemics, social inequalities, and more. As a result, it has now become a necessity to build social, economic, and environmental resilience and strive for affordable, low impact, and universally accessible and comfortable places. Resilience or recovery planning and urban design share one target that is providing safety and stability for urban communities. Tackling the repercussions of urban sprawl, fuel poverty, emission levels affecting our quality of life, Resilient Architecture and Design also represent a chance at adaptability in the face of climatic changes and natural disasters.

Discussed at a ‘human scale’, the conference focuses on the ways in which architecture and urban practices can make a transformative contribution at the neighborhood scale or rather the lived scale of buildings and everyday life. This conference will stimulate discussion on the theories of continuous change in cities and ideals and new pedagogies of resilient architecture. It brings together cross-disciplinary perspectives from urban design, architecture, geography, art, technology, building science to open up multiple standpoints and opportunities for research, strategies, and projects on the ways in which local resilience can prepare us for major societal challenges.

With new and smart technologies, we now have the tools needed to take preventive measures and plan for long-term sustainable growth. As new forms of design, social and technical innovations, as well as new economic models and research methods, are presented, together we approach uncharted territory. The international conference on Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism (RRAU) – 3rd Edition, organized in collaboration with Xiamen University Malaysia, The Third Edition brings together expert practitioners, interdisciplinary students, readers, and researchers from around the world to reframe existing challenges as opportunities for design and innovation.

• 1. Resilient Buildings: Design & Construction

  • Ramping Up Net Zero Energy Buildings
  • Robustness and Resilience of Structures
  • Improving Sustainable Design & Construction
  • Towards Resilient Non-Engineered Construction
  • Geographies of resilience: Challenges and Opportunities
  • Beyond Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management
  • Building Resilience to Natural Disasters

• 2. The Path to City Resilience

  • Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure
  • Less Vulnerable Cities: Resilience in Smart Planning 
  • Green Initiatives and Sustainable Urbanism
  • Energy-Efficient Urban City Planning
  • Resilience, Sustainability and Risk Management
  • Coastal Cities and Rising Sea Levels
  • Digital Technology and Scalability for Resilience

• 3. Resiliency on a Community Scale

  • Urban Sustainability and Economic Development
  • Designing Resilient Transportation Systems
  • Resilient Communication Systems
  • Meeting City Demands
  • Health and Well-being: Reducing Human Vulnerability
  • Community Measures: Strategic Planning

• 4. Ecological Resilience: Theory & Application

  • Renewable Energy Sources: Materials, Energy & Water
  • Sustainable Urban Water Systems
  • Climate change: Global Challenges & Adaptation
  • Withstanding Extreme Weather and Natural Disaster 
  • Sustainable & Renewable Energy Integration & Adoption
  • Waste Management and Recycling Awareness

• 5. Resiliency for the Future

  • Design for Change: The Resilient City
  • Sustainability and Resilience in the new world
  • Adaptive Landscapes: Risk, Ecology, and Education
  • Meeting the demands of the city
  • Risk management and Mitigation

Best Paper and Best Presentation Award

IEREK and XMUM will offer one best paper award for papers submitted to and presented at the Future Smart Cities and Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism international conferences –the third editions. A Best presentation award will also be given for the most outstanding presentation in the conference.

About the Awards

The award is established to recognize and promote scholarly contributions presented at the conference. We believe it is important in the research community to recognize the outstanding work that is being published and presented in their perspective areas.

Recognition for Best Paper & Best Presentation Awards

• A waiver of the registration fee for the following year’s edition, to take place on campus (excluding publication fee).
• A 20% discount on one (other) event of the author's choosing from IEREK’s list of annual conferences
• A letter of notification and congratulations from the conference chair to the recipient with their institution/ or organizations head copied on the correspondence
• Announcement and recognition on IEREK’s social media platforms and newsletter shedding light on the news

For papers with multiple authors, the formal recognition, certificate, fee waiver, and discount are split among attendees whom have taken part and attended the current edition.

Submission Deadline
 
All Best Paper Award submissions must be uploaded to the IEREK Website by the full paper deadline stated in the ‘Important Dates’ Section and no later than, September 01, 2020.

Submission/Delivery Requirements

For best paper awards:

• All submitted papers must be submitted by the full paper deadline submission. Papers submitted after the deadline will not be considered for the best paper award.
• Papers must conform to the ‘Author Instructions’ available on the conference page
• The template provided must be used

Papers will be evaluated according to two sets of criteria, content and substance, weighted equally.

For best presentation awards:

The selection process for a best presentation award takes into consideration factors such as whether the presentation is impactful, and whether the speaker is inspiring and authoritative. Factors such as Readability, coherence, effective organization, use of clear concise, and comprehensible language will be considered.
 
Content criteria consider the quality of the papers:

• Literature review, research and theoretical framing
• Methodology in relation to the research question(s) posed
• Data and information sources
• Results, and 
• Discussions and Conclusions, including the extent to which conclusions follow from results, as well as implications for future research or current practice 

Substance criteria include evaluate:

• The importance and relevance of the research questions(s) to the field of institutional research or another appropriate area of higher education research and/or the innovativeness of the approach in the field of institutional research,
• Soundness of methodology, including the appropriateness of the quantitative or qualitative approach given the research question(s), and validity of any statistical or other analytical techniques,  
• Soundness of conclusions reached given the paper’s results,
• Organization and writing, and
• Utility of the paper for the institutional research and/or broader higher education community; special attention will be paid to the generalizability of the paper to the field of institutional research (this can include but is not limited to applicability of the conclusions to different institutional types).

Instructions

- Each research paper should have one main author who should pay the full fee (Author fees) regardless of attendance.

- Each co-author (1-5 max) has his/her own separate fees to pay as shown in a table below.

- A research paper fee allows only one author, whether main or co-author, to attend the conference and receive only one copy of the conference proceedings book in both hard and soft copies. Extras can be requested for a fee shown below.

Conference Fees:

Delegates in any event who cancel their registration due to special circumstances will receive refunds according to the following:

All accepted papers of the conference will be either published as chapters in the Book Series “Advances in Science, Technology and Innovation” (ASTI) by Springer or in The International Journal of Proceedings of Science and Technology (Resourceedings) online by IEREK Press after a rigorous peer-review process. 

To publish your research in the online Journal or Book by 'Springer' and provide it with world-wide visibility, authors must submit an extended version of their short papers that are 10 -12 pages long.

The ASTI Book Series by Springer is by highly professional members of an International Editorial Board to ensure a high-quality publication material to be eventually published online and printable.

The ASTI Book Series will be submitted for indexation in Web of Science (ISI), EI-Compendex, and Scopus databases.

The Previous proceedings of the 1^st Conference are published in the ASTI Book titled "Urban and Transit Planning" published by Springer.

The proceedings of the 2^nd Conference of Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism  (2^nd RRAU) -ISBN "978/977-85525-3-9"- will be  published in the ASTI book series "Resilient and Responsible Smart Cities". As for the rest of the proceedings they are published online in The International Journal of Proceedings of Science and Technology (Resourceedings).

Note that only authors of accepted papers who will register before the full paper deadline will be allowed to present during the conference sessions (see Important Dates and Conference Fees).

The proceedings of the Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism  (3^rd RRAU) will consist of many sections (or Parts), which will be edited by the a group of Chief Editors.

For IEREK's Provious Publications, Please Click here

- Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism (RRAU) - 1st Edition held in Hanze University, Netherlands in April, 2018.

Springer

Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation (ASTI) Series.

Urban and Transit Planning.

Publication link: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030173074

- Resilient and Responsible Architecture and Urbanism (RRAU) - 2nd Edition in Xiamen University, Malaysia in November, 2019.

Springer (In Progress)

Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation (ASTI) Series.

Resilient and Responsible Smart Cities.

(Selected Papers) Publication link: In Progress

Elementary Review:

Once an abstract has been submitted to our website, it is assigned for review by the reviewers using the abstract review sheet and validation of publication. This is based on four criteria:

1. Accepted for publication (with minor editing changes).

2. Conditionally accepted for publication (with revisions provided to authors).

3. Rejected but encouraged for re-submission with major modifications.

4. Rejected as inappropriate or unworthy of publication in this certain conference.

The criteria for accepting abstracts for the conference are as follows; a relevant topic of the conference should be proposed with clear writing, aims, and objectives of the study clearly presented, as well as a sound literature and methodology of the work.

First Acceptance:

Authors will receive a notification message to know the feedback of the reviewers' committee. If an author receives the acceptance of his or her abstract, he or she has to continue writing the full-length paper using the requested templates.

Uploading Full-Length Paper:

Authors who are allowed to upload their full-length paper(s) should use the same account details to upload their full paper(s).

Second Acceptance:

The final paper will proceed to the primary revision to be checked if it meets the conference proceedings standards. Once it gets accepted, the author of the paper will be informed to pay the fees so that it could be sent for the final revision by the scientific committee.

Payment:

In this step, and to proceed paper(s) that passed to the final revision process and to get the final approval, authors have to pay the requested fees. Otherwise, the final revision process will not be considered for their papers.

Inspections and Final Approval of Full Papers:

Those with full papers and who have paid the requested fees will get finally inspected, either scientifically or linguistically. There will be a rigorous review process of full papers following the previous process according to the following criteria:

(1) Is the topic relevant to the conference?

(2) Are the writing and structure clear?

(3) Are graphics, photos, illustrations used where needed?

(4) Are the aims of the study clearly stated?

(5) Are the objectives of the study achieved?

(6) Is the literature review relevant and adequate?

(7) Has the author used an appropriate methodology and has it been clearly explained?

(8) Has the author interpreted the findings correctly?

(9) Is the paper a significant contribution to the field?

These are the registration and revision procedures for publication that all authors should follow.

- IEREK has an unyielding policy regarding plagiarism. We believe that copying/taking the ideas and work of other Authors without permission and credit is fraudulent.

- The Reviewing committee and IEREK employees have the authority to reject a paper during its reviewing process,  on the basis of the paper being subjected to either minor or major plagiarism.

- Duplicating any content, even if it is one sentence or one table without the consent of its original Author, will lead to the paper’s refusal upon the complaint of the plagiarism victim.

Advances in Science, Technology and Innovation Book Series
IEREK Series for Interdisciplinary Studies

Springer:

- On 10 May 1842 (his 25th birthday), Julius Springer founded his bookstore and publishing house in Berlin, laying the foundation for today’s company.

- After 175 dynamic years, the name Springer stands for a globally active publisher dedicated to the advancement of science, putting its authors and editors at the heart of the company’s publishing activities.

- Springer is a leading global scientific, technical and medical portfolio, providing researchers in academia, scientific institutions and corporate R&D departments with quality content through innovative information, products and services.

- Springer has one of the strongest STM and HSS eBook collections and archives, as well as a comprehensive range of hybrid and open access journals.

- Springer is part of Springer Nature, a global publisher that serves and supports the research community. Springer Nature aims to advance discovery by publishing robust and insightful science, supporting the development of new areas of research and making ideas and knowledge accessible around the world.

- As part of Springer Nature, Springer sits alongside other trusted brands like Nature Research, BioMed Central, and Palgrave Macmillan.

About the Series:

Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation (ASTI) is a series of peer-reviewed books based on the best studies on emerging research that redefines existing disciplinary boundaries in science, technology, and innovation (STI) in order to develop integrated concepts for sustainable development. The series is mainly based on the best research papers from various IEREK and other international conferences or direct submissions and is intended to promote the creation and development of viable solutions for a sustainable future and a positive societal transformation with the help of integrated and innovative science-based approaches. Offering interdisciplinary coverage, the series presents innovative approaches and highlights how they can best support both the economic and sustainable development for the welfare of all societies. In particular, the series includes conceptual and empirical contributions from different interrelated fields of science, technology, and innovation that focus on providing practical solutions to ensure food, water, and energy security. It also presents new case studies offering concrete examples of how to resolve sustainable urbanization and environmental issues. The series is addressed to professionals in research and teaching, consultancies and industry, and government and international organizations. Published in collaboration with Springer, the IEREK Interdisciplinary Series for Sustainable Development will acquaint readers with essential new studies in STI for sustainable development.

Publication:

Publishing your paper with a reputable and renowned publisher is necessary to maintain the high quality standards of the scientific process along with retaining your copyright. It is even more advantageous to increase the exposure of your paper to the rest of the scientific community either online, offline, or in both versions.

All of the papers present in the book either belong to the best research papers in IEREK’s conferences or the authors’ direct submissions.Fees for direct submission: - The revision process: 200$ (nonrefundable)- Once the paper is accepted and approved: 200$.

Click on the below image to learn more about the editors