This year's Rocscience International Conference will be hosted in person in Toronto, Canada on April 24th-26th, 2023. Click on the video to see the announcement from Dr. Thamer Yacoub, Rocscience CEO and President.
For the written transcript for the video, click here.
This year's Rocscience International Conference will be hosted in person in Toronto, Canada on April 24th-26th, 2023. Click on the video to see the announcement from Dr. Thamer Yacoub, Rocscience CEO and President.
For the written transcript for the video, click here.
Rocscience is delighted to announce the Rocscience International Conference 2023 (RIC2023), an in-person gathering to be held from April 24-26, 2023, in Toronto, Canada. RIC2023's primary objective is to bring geotechnical professionals together to meet and exchange ideas on important issues and developments in geotechnical engineering, particularly combinations of emerging and mature technologies.
The geotechnical industry is rapidly evolving. Engineers are more connected through technology, technology is becoming more integrated than ever, and methods combining these technologies are becoming more prevalent. This movement towards combining technologies led us to the conference theme, “Synergy in Geotechnical Engineering – Success Beyond Individual Technologies.” We believe the time is right to highlight how far the industry has come with various technologies and continues to develop. The conference aims to create an environment that fosters new perspectives and helps attendees delve deeper into innovative approaches.
During RIC2023, Rocscience will award the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Medal to Dr. Norbert Morgenstern, an internationally recognized authority in the engineering community. As both a practitioner and educator, Dr. Morgenstern’s contributions to the geotechnical community continue to benefit engineers worldwide, and he will give an address on his career.
In addition to keynotes by Dr. Morgernstern and four other distinguished speakers, there will be several technical and networking sessions.
Message from the Chairs
RIC2023 will be packed with paper presentations and we'd love for you to participate by submitting a paper. Dr. Reginald Hammah and Dr. Alison McQuillan will provide the details.
Lifetime Achievement Medal Recipient
Dr. Norbert Morgenstern
Rocscience is honoured to award the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Medal to Dr. Norbert Morgenstern.
As an internationally recognized authority in the engineering community as both a practitioner and educator, Norbert’s contributions to the geotechnical community have and continue to benefit engineers around the world.
Dr. Morgenstern will be receiving this award on April 24th and will give a speech to all conference attendees.
Abstract and Paper Submissions
We invite geotechnical professionals from around the world to submit the abstracts for their technical papers by November 30th, 2022, on themes including:
- Tunnelling in challenging environments
- Slope stability analysis
- Numerical modelling of excavations
- Analysis of underground excavations
- Computational geomechanics
- Foundation engineering
- Artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies in geomechanics
- Advancements in probabilistic geotechnical analysis
- Advancements in three-dimensional geotechnical analysis
- Dynamic analysis of soils and liquefaction modelling
- Continuous and discontinuous rock mechanics
- Innovative approaches and technologies for tailings storage facilities design
- Soil-structure interactions
- Settlement analysis and ground improvements
- Groundwater flow and seepage analysis
- Advanced geotechnical monitoring technologies – slope stability and underground
- Site investigations
All the accepted technical papers will be included in the conference proceedings.
View the list of accepted abstracts
Download the paper template from here
Editorial Policy
Publication Guidelines
All submitted papers must be written in English and presented in English.
Authors must ensure that their submitted papers for RIC2023 have not been accepted for another conference or published previously. Papers must also not be duplicates of previously published manuscripts. (‘Duplicates’ refer to papers that significantly overlap with already published manuscripts.)
All papers must be submitted electronically in Microsoft Word through the conference portal.
Every paper must:
- Include the title of the work, abstract, authors' names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses
- Follow conventions outlined in the paper template, including paragraphing, sections, sub-sections and referencing formats, use of italics, and labelling of figures and drawings
- Drawings and their labelling must be legible
Ethics
Authors of RIC2023 papers must correctly attribute knowledge or information from the works of other researchers. They must adhere to widely accepted ethical standards on identifying sources to protect against plagiarism. Authors must also disclose data sources, outline how they collected the data for their conference paper and adhere to recognized ethical research practices.
Authors must list research funding sources in their papers, including direct and indirect financial support and in-kind support. These sources may be listed under an acknowledgments section or appropriately identified in the main text.
Should reviewers seek clarification on matters such as originality or data sources, authors must promptly provide the required responses.
Review Process
RIC2023 will ensure that experts with relevant expertise review papers. The conference's reviewers will carefully read papers, treat authors fairly and provide constructive feedback. They will consider papers as confidential information and keep their identity from authors. If reviewers need clarification about any aspects or have a conflict of interest, they will immediately consult with the conference chairs.
View the list of Technical Peer Reviewers for the Papers
Submit Your Paper
All papers must be submitted through the EquinOCS platform, which is hosted by our publisher SpringerNature. View the step-by-step instructions of how to submit your paper.
Rocscience International Conference Best Student Paper (RBSP)
We welcomed students to participate in this exciting and prestigious international contest by submitting geotechnical engineering abstracts and papers for the Rocscience International Conference 2023 (RIC2023), to be held in Toronto, Canada on April 24-26, 2023.
Interested students have submitted a 2-page extended abstract for review by the Student Contest Committee, which will select the finalists. The finalists will now submit full papers and present them at a Student Paper Contest oral session.
Awards
RIC2023 will award three prizes:
The contest seeks to encourage students to apply geotechnical concepts and modelling tools to real-world problems. It wants to inspire students to develop creative problem-solving skills and effectively communicate their ideas, highly prized attributes in industry and academia.
Selection Process
A panel of industry and academia judges (and from various geotechnical sub-specialties) have reviewed the submissions and the judges have selected the top four submissions as finalists. The finalists will submit full papers and present them at the Student Paper Contest oral session at RIC2023 in Toronto, Canada in April 2023.
Technical Course
As a part of RIC 2023, we will host three short technical courses on April 24th, 2023:
Course I: Stability Analysis of Tailings Storage Facilities using Rocscience Software
Course II: Settlement, Consolidation, and Liquefaction Analysis of Foundations using Numerical Tools
Course III: Slope Stability Analysis with Limit Equilibrium and Finite Element Software
All courses will be hosted in parallel sessions on April 24th, 2023 from 8 AM - 4 PM at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
Keynote Speakers

Dr. Derek Martin
University of Alberta
Topic:
Performance-based design in rock engineering
Dr. Mohamed Meguid
McGill University
Topic:
An overview of the challenges and developments in the analysis of transportation infrastructure in a changing climate

Dr. Ellen Rathje
University of Texas at Austin
Topic:
The Role of Data, Simulation, and Cyberinfrastructure in Geotechnical Engineering.

Dr. Youssef M A Hashash
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Topic:
Geotechnical Engineering in the Age of AI and Machine Learning
Venue
Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
123 Queen St W
Toronto, ON
M5H 2M9
Tickets
Conference Pass
Conference Pass + Course
All listed prices are in USD and exclude taxes.
If you want to purchase 3 or more tickets, please email ric2023@rocscience.com to inquire about group ticket pricing.
Students are eligible for a 50% discount on the conference pass and the conference pass + course. Please write to us at ric2023@rocscience.com if you are a student and wish to attend the conference and avail of the discount.
If you need to travel to Canada to attend the Rocscience International Conference 2023 and need an invitation letter, please register first for the conference and write to us at ric2023@rocscience.com along with the booking confirmation number.
Conference Chairs

General Chair
Thamer Yacoub
CEO and President
Rocscience
Technical Chair
Reginald Hammah
Director of Rocscience in Africa
Rocscience

Technical Chair
Alison McQuillan
Director of Rocscience in Australia
Rocscience

Technical Chair
Alireza Azami
Director of Business and Research
Rocscience

Technical Chair
Sina Javankhoshdel
Geomechanics Product Manager
Rocscience
Organizing Committee

Planning and logistics
Saiyona Ghosh

Registrations & finance
Anthony Salvalaggio

On-ground logistics
Calvin Heinrichs

On-ground logistics
Marissa Ponn
Registrations
Ruth Obeng-King
Publications Committee
Editor-in-Chief
Reginald Hammah

Editor
Thamer Yacoub

Editor
Alison McQuillan

Editor
Alireza Azami

Editor
Sina Javankhoshdel
Marketing and Publicity Team
Conference Outreach
Reginald Hammah

Patner Outreach
Sina Javankhoshdel

Marketing & Communications
Saiyona Ghosh

Marketing & Communications
Calvin Heinrichs

Design & Graphics
Marissa Ponn

Website Development & Support
Egor Shevchenko