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The VTS Board of Governors met on 6 June 2017 in Sydney at
VTC2017-Spring. Finances are always a major part of this second meeting of
the year, since VTS is required to agree its budget for 2018 in July.
The Society has had a very successful 2016, generating a
surplus of over $350k. The majority of this came from investment
income, which had generated a higher yield than expected. Normal operations
were slightly positive to the roughly break even budget planned for 2016.
Under IEEE rules, financially healthy societies may use 50% of their previous
year surplus for new initiatives, so the meeting spent some time discussing
priorities for these resources.
Given this positive state of finances, it was agreed not
to increase membership dues next year. They will remain at $18, where they
have been for over a decade.
VTS continues to increase its activities. It is taking a
major part in the new IEEE 5G Initiative, and well as being responsible for
the Initiative’s web and community development working groups, will be
organizing the V2X track at the 5G World Forum taking place 9-11 July 2018
in Santa Clara. In addition, the Board approved a 20% increase in the page
budget of the VT Magazine to allow two special issues each year in
conjunction with the 5G Initiative. This will start from December this year.
The page count of the Transactions on Vehicular Technology
is also set to increase. The page budget had been increased to 10,500 this
year to clear the backlog, but this is to be increased by 700 pages, and the
budget for 2018 set to 10,115 to allow the early access queue to be cleared
by the end of next year, so finished papers are published in an issue within
two months of completion.
Following the success of the outreach activity in China
last year, a similar exercise focused on Australia will take place this
year. VTS will take part in Sections Congress in August, and the activities
will take place in conjunction with that event.
A new early career award was approved, along with changes
to the honoraria and criteria for some of the other awards. Candidates up to
35 years old are eligible for the early career award, which will recognize
excellence in operational, experimental or theoretical aspects of VTS
technology so industry, policy, standards and academic candidates will have
equal opportunity.
Plans have also been put in place to restart two VTS
Fellowships – the Convergence Fellowship and the Dan E. Noble
Fellowship. These had been suspended as their endowments were no
longer sufficient to fund them, and the opportunity was being taken to
update eligibility from North American students to students worldwide. The
Dan E. Noble Fellowship is co-sponsored by the Motorola Foundation, so a
slightly longer process is required with their approval.
The highly successful Motor Vehicle Challenge will be
repeated next year in cooperation with the US Department of Energy. This
second challenge is going to be aligned with university terms to make it
easier for student teams to take part.
A new video was shown at the Board meeting, which has
been commissioned to highlight the Society’s activities. The video
will be included with the proceedings of VTC2017-Fall.
Finally, returning to the division of resources, the
$177k available from last year’s surplus was allocated as follows:
- $43,000 into the Dan Noble Fellowship endowment fund
- $50,000 into the Convergence Fellowship endowment fund
- $8000 to support VTS’ presence at Sections Congress
- $8000 for the Motor Vehicle Challenge
- $11,850 for additional chapter activities
- $13,150 to produce a VTC promotional video
- $15,000 for VTS Conference Travel Support
- $28,000 to increase the TVT page count
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