Background of the Conference
The Toulon-Verona Conference is a well-established international forum that encourages the debate between academics, researchers and managers interesting in the implementation of Quality Management and Excellence in Higher Education, Health Care, Local Government, Tourism, Banking, and Logistics.
Coimbra will be hosting the 13th conference in the series, being proud to join the list of Universities that took the same role in previous years: Toulon 1998; Verona 1999; Derby 2000; Mons 2001; Lisboa 2002; Oviedo 2003; Toulon 2004 ; Palermo 2005, Paisley 2006, Thessaloniki 2007, Florence 2008, and Verona 2009.
The conference will include plenary sessions with keynote speakers and specialized parallel sessions. An international committee will select the best papers, including PhD papers, that will be published in a Journal after the conference.
History
During the first QMOD Conference in Zhenzhou, China, in 1997, Professor Claudio Baccarani of the University of Verona, Italy, and Professor Michel Weill of the University of Toulon, France, launched the idea of organizing a conference sponsored by their two universities on the theme of quality in higher education institutions. Over the years, the conference has expanded its scope, welcomed hundreds of delegates and published more than a thousand research papers.
The 1st Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Toulon, France, in 1998, and supported by the European Foundation for Quality Management with one of its representatives delivering an address on quality in higher education.
The 2nd Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Verona, Italy, in 1999, and welcomed Prof. Christian Delvosalle of the Mons Polytechnic, Belgium, Prof. Kostas Dervitsiotis of the University of Piraeus, Greece, Prof. Jens Dahlgaard of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark and Peter Williams of the QAA, UK, to deliver keynote speeches.
The 3rd Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Derby, UK, and sponsored by Rolls-Royce.
The 4th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the Polytechnic of Mons, Belgium, and sponsored by the Mouvement Wallon pour la Qualité. For this 4th Conference the scope was widened to quality in health care, which was becoming a key issue in service quality.
The 5th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the ISEG of Lisbon, Portugal, and supported, among others, by the Foundation for Science and Technology of the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Higher Education. Once again the scope of the conference was widened to include local government bodies which had begun to embrace quality management principles and practices.
The 6th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Oviedo, Spain, supported by the Centre for Quality in Asturias, the Oviedo City Council, ANECA and cajAstur.
The 7th Toulon-Verona Conference came back to the University of Toulon, France, supported by the Provence Regional Council, the Var Council and the Toulon Provence Méditerranée Council. To consolidate the three main themes, the conference took on the name of "Quality in Services".
The 8th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Palermo, Italy. The new theme of "Quality in Management of Cultural Heritage" appeared as, like for Health Care and Local Government previously, tourism, leisure and cultural activities began to adopt quality management principles and methods.
The 9th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Paisley, Scotland, and was supported and sponsored by the Renfrewshire Council, Gael, Quality Scotland and Ross International. The conference welcomed Professor Joseph Kelada of HEC, Montreal, Canada, and Professor Ton van der Wiele of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The themes of the conference were consolidated with tourism and leisure as one of the major topics of the event, and "Quality in Services" becoming "Excellence in Services".
The 10th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, and welcomed Professor E.S.Savas of Baruch College/CUNY, New York, USA, Professor Don Westerheijden, CHEPS/University of Twende, The Netherlands and Professor Jens J. Dahlgaard, University of Linköking, Sweden.
The 11th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Florence, Italy and included the new theme of banking services. Professor Tony Bendell, UK, and Dr Stefano Nardini, Italy, were invited as keynote speakers. On the occasion of this 12th Toulon-Verona Conference, it was decided to organize the 2009 conference jointly with the QMOD Conference under the umbrella name of the International Conference on Quality and Service Sciences.
The 12th Toulon-Verona Conference was hosted by the University of Verona, Italy, jointly with the 12th QMOD Conference, under the common name of ICQSS. The Conference welcomed Prof. Noriaki Kano of Tokyo University of Science and Cornelis Versluis, Senior Director of Global quality, LEGO Group, as keynote speakers.
Welcome to the 13th Toulon-Verona (ICQSS) Conference "Excellence in Services" in Coimbra, Portugal, on 2-4 September 2010.
