Rules for changing the status of Geant4 “Member” and “Contributor”

(Version 1, 26 September 2024)

We aim here to formalize the rules for changing the status of a Geant4 “Member” to “Contributor” or losing the status of “Contributor”.

The status of “Member” and “Contributor” are already defined elsewhere:

Similarly, we don’t consider here the case that someone (a User, a Contributor, a Member) asks the Geant4 management explicitly for a change to her/his status.

At the beginning of each year, during the month of January, the “Geant4 census” is carried out. This requests the following three pieces of information from each current Member and Contributor:

  1. Approval (signing) of their Geant4 membership for the current year.
  2. Their FTE contributions to Geant4 Working Groups (WGs):
    • a. Effective FTE (per WG) for the previous year;
    • b. Expected FTE (per WG) for the current year.
  3. Their plan of work (per WG) for the current year.

The Geant4 Spokesperson is responsible for calling the census, via email, and specifying the deadline by which the above information must be provided. It is recommended, but not mandatory, to provide all requested information in one go; in all cases, the whole requested information must be provided within the specified deadline (typically towards the end of January). At least two reminders will be sent by the spokesperson (typically one at the middle of the month, and one a few days before the deadline).

At the end of the census deadline, the Spokesperson will notify the Steering Board, via email, of the results, and for those Members/Contributors who did not provide the requested information in time propose the following actions:

  • a. Members will have their status changed to Contributor;
  • b. Contributors will loose their status.

Exceptions for known and well justified reasons (e.g. health issues) would be granted. In addition, any member of the Steering Board can veto the proposed action for one or more people, providing a written justification within one week from the moment that the actions are proposed.

At the end of this one-week period the remaining people will be informed by the Spokesperson, by email, about the change in their status - change that will be actually carried out in the DBs/Groups one week later.

In the case of census information being completed later than the deadline, during the remaining part of the year:

  • i. former Members are allowed to regain their Member status, and, similarly, former Contributors are allowed to regain their Contributor status, but there is no guarantee on how long this re-integration action will take, and they will be informed;
  • ii. no guarantee that their FTE will be taken into account (e.g. to decide the number of seats at the Steering Board for each Working Group);
  • iii. no guarantee that their plan of work will be taken into account (e.g. when presenting the plan of work at the Technical Forum and in the corresponding document linked to the Geant4 web page).