Over the weekend, the IPA Executive Committee and members of the ICOP 2020 Local Organizing Committee held an emergency meeting to discuss the plans for ICOP 2020 in light of the situation with COVID-19 in China. Unfortunately it is simply not possible to hold an international conference as planned in 2020. The IPA releases an official statement on this cancellation today; this is attached to this email.
As is mentioned in the statement, some decisions still need to be made regarding future IPA conferences given the cancellation of ICOP 2020. ICOP 2020 and RCOP 2021 organizers as well as members of the IPA EC, IPA International Advisory Committee, and ICOP 2020 International Scientific Committee will be working on this issue in the coming weeks. The IPA EC will then make a recommendation to Council on how to handle the future conference schedule, allowing the IPA to announce additional information by 1 April. Therefore, you can expect to be involved in the decision making process before this date. The Council is the governing body of the IPA, and thus it is critical that you are all included in these developments.
Though ICOP 2020 is cancelled, it is important that Council still meets to discuss and decide on timely matters, including the budget, future conferences, the revised IPA strategy, and Executive Committee elections. The IPA EC has decided to hold an online Council meeting, and asks everyone to reserve the dates 22 & 23 June for this meeting. The meeting will not take the entire day both days, but this span of dates gives us flexibility to schedule the meeting at a time that suits the most people across such a wide range of time zones. You will be notified of the final times and online meeting platform once these aspects have been arranged.
Source: IPA Secretariat (International Permafrost Association)