[Corpora-List] EACL 2009: Call for Bids

[Anette Frank]

        EACL 2009: CALL FOR BIDS

The European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
(EACL) hereby invites proposals to host the conference of the European
Chapter of ACL in 2009. This conference takes place every 3 years.
The conference in 2009 will be the 12th meeting of the EACL.

At this time, we seek draft proposals from prospective bidders. Based
on an evaluation of the draft proposals received, promising bidders
will be asked to provide additional information on which basis
final selection will be made.

The EACL Board will select the general chair for the conference, the
programme committee chair, and all other chairs (e.g., tutorial chair,
workshop chair, sponsorship chair etc) except for the local
arrangements chair.

Draft proposals should identify a local arrangements chair, who will
be responsible for activities such as arranging meeting rooms,
equipment, refreshments, accommodation, on-site registration,
participant internet access, security for equipment, the reception, the
banquet, and working with the other chairs and the EACL Board to
develop the budget and registration materials.  Achieving budget
estimates will, in particular, involve liaising with the sponsorships
chair, who will be chosen by the EACL board.

Draft proposals are due on December 15, 2006. They will be evaluated
by the EACL Board by February 1, 2007. Promising bidders will then be
contacted and asked to provide further information due by May 13,
2007. The final bid will be chosen in July 2007.

The conference should take place during April 2009, avoiding national
holidays of the EACL countries (in 2009, western Easter is April
10--13, orthodox Easter is April 17--19, Jewish passover is April
9-16).  Draft proposals should include information on:

o    Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or
      university; accommodations, e.g., hotels, motels, student
      dorms)
o    Proposed dates
o    Local Arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee,
      volunteer labour, registration handling)
o    Local Computational Linguistics community
o    Meeting venues (space for plenary sessions, tutorials,
      workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings)
o    A/V equipment
o    Desktop and wireless internet access
o    Food/entertainment/banquet/receptions
o    Sponsorships
o    Budget estimates
o    Opportunities for co-location with other meetings.

Proposals will be evaluated in relation to a number of site selection
criteria (unordered):

o    Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the
      anticipated number of registrants
o    Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a
      range of price categories and close to the conference
      facilities
o    Adequacy of budget projections and expected surplus
o    Appropriateness of proposed dates
o    Geographical and national balance with regard to previous
      conferences in Bergen (EACL 1999), Saarbruecken (Coling
      2000), Toulouse (ACL 2001), Budapest (EACL 2003), Geneva
      (Coling 2004), Barcelona (ACL 2004), Trento (EACL 2006) and
      Prague (ACL 2007).
o    Experience of local arrangements team
o    Local CL community support
o    Local government and industry support
o    Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site

The ACL conference handbook and more about ACL policies may be found
at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive.

Successful sample bids for previous conferences may be found at:
http://www.aclweb.org/archive/bids.html

Please send draft proposals electronically to the EACL Chair-elect:

Alex Lascarides
School of Informatics,
University of Edinburgh,
2, Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh, EH8 9LW,
Scotland, UK.
tel: 31 503637811
fax: 31 503636855
alex at inf.ed.ac.uk

You can also attach your draft proposal as a pdf attachment
in email.

Important Dates:

    o December 15, 2006 Draft proposals due
    o February 1, 2007 EACL Executive Board evaluates proposals
    o May 13, 2007 Promising bidders provide any requested information
    o July 1, 2007 Bid selected by EACL Executive Board