MICCAI 2023: Call for Challenges

Saturday 5th November 2022

MICCAI 2023 will be held in Vancouver, Canada from October 8 to 12, 2023. Among other satellite events, challenges have become an integral part of MICCAI. 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 MICCAI, provide high-quality data for testing / training algorithms, and define a clear assessment procedure. Examples of topics from previous challenges include: segmentation, registration, computer-aided detection and diagnosis, endoscopic vision, and brain connectivity. Proposals related to accessible, fair, responsible, and translational healthcare are particularly welcome.

Challenge format

Challenges will take place on October 8th and 12th 2023. 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. Challenge sessions may be designed as oral / poster presentations of the results that each participant achieved prior to the conference and/or hands-on competitions during the event. 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.

In addition, there is the possibility of an early submission of challenge proposals for sessions to be held at MICCAI 2024. As it will be held for the first time on the African continent, challenge proposals addressing clinical use cases which are relevant for global health and affordable medical imaging are welcome.

Submission process

Challenge submissions will be handled by a structured process to ensure completeness of the information for a high-quality challenge review as well as structured access to challenge information in the future. The submission process entails two steps:
1. Prepare the challenge design by providing at least 90% of the challenge parameters and submitting it to the structured submission system.
2. Submit the generated and unchanged challenge design (pdf) to the review platform (CMT).

Note: Uploading a challenge design document to CMT that is incomplete or different to the one generated with the structured preparation system will lead to a rejection of the challenge.

Review process

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.

At least two reviewers 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 applicants to provide supplementary materials and to revise their proposals in order to ensure the quality and standard of the MICCAI challenges. Upon acceptance of the challenge, the complete design of the challenge will be registered (Zenodo) before it takes place. Changes to the design (e.g. to the metrics or ranking schemes) must be well-justified and officially re-registered.

Copyright

Authors will assign to the MICCAI Society the right to distribute challenge materials (such as the agenda or the challenge design document) to MICCAI members and to challenge and conference attendees, independently of the copyright ownership planned by the challenge organizers.

Budget

MICCAI 2023 will not pay for travel arrangements or stipends for the organizers of satellite events nor provide concessions on registration fees. The MICCAI 2023 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 only plan 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
Challenge proposals due: 08 December 2022
First round of feedback and early decisions: 27 January 2023
Revised challenge proposals due: 17 February 2023
Final notification of acceptance: 03 March 2023
Individual challenge websites opening: 14 April 2023