2016Q3 Reports: ACL 2019

ACL 2019 - report by Marti Hearst

In 2019 there will be an ACL conference in EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa). Initial steps towards the organization of the conference have begun.

We have set up the conference coordinating committee:

• Marti Hearst (chair; ACL past president in 2019) hearst@berkeley.edu
• Shiqi Zhao (ACL secretary) zhaoshiqi@baidu.com
• Graeme Hirst (ACL treasurer) gh@cs.toronto.edu
• Yejin Choi (ACL board) yejin@cs.washington.edu
• Lluis Marquez (EACL Chair) lmarquez@qf.org.qa
• Walter Daelemans (EACL Chair Elect) walter.daelemans@uantwerpen.de
• Caroline Sporleder (EACL Secretary) csporled@coli.uni-saarland.de
• Mike Rosner (EACL Treasurer) eacl-treasurer@coli.uni-saarland.de
• Priscilla Rasmussen (ACL business officer) acl@aclweb.org

The committee has an email list address: acl19cc@aclweb.org

There is a call for bids, and a local expenses template, based on the one from 2018. Priscilla reports that two European city's Convention Bureau's have visited her offices already. We will continue to make contact with potential bidders at ACL 2016. For the next steps of the process, we will follow the guidelines http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Conference_planning_schedule. For the next half year or so, it is most important to contact potential organizers, to ensure that we will have a number of promising bids to choose from.

Call for Bids - ACL 2019

57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the conference in the Europe/Middle East/Africa region in July or August 2019. At this time, we seek preliminary draft proposals from prospective bidders in the relevant regions. Promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information for the final selection.

The ACL 2019 Coordinating Committee, made up of representatives of the ACL and representatives from the EACL (European Association of Computational Linguistics), will select the General Chair and the Program Committee Co-Chairs for the conference. Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will work with the General Chair and the Coordinating Committee to develop a detailed plan and budget.

To facilitate conference organization, bidders may delegate many tasks of their choice to a Professional Conference Organizer and/or to the ACL Office (Priscilla Rasmussen). Bid guidelines, including expense and task list templates and additional useful links are provided at: http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Bid_Guidelines. The template for local expenses is available here: http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/ACL-conference-bid-template-Rev-2014-06-23.xls.

Bid Highlights: Draft proposals include information on the following:

• Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodation; dining options)
• Proposed dates. Religious and local national holidays should be avoided, as much as possible.
• Local arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling; describing any experience the team has had in organizing previous conferences and the number of participants at those conferences)
• Local Computational Linguistics community
• Meeting venues (space for sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos, small meetings and registration)
• High-speed, all-ports-open, easy-to-use internet access
• Audiovisual equipment
• Catering, including breaks, receptions, poster sessions
• Local sponsorships
• Local expenses estimates spreadsheet (using template provided, link above)

Evaluation: Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (unordered):

• Experience, flexibility, and openmindedness of local arrangements team
• Local computational linguistics community support
• Local government and industry support
• Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site
• Suitability of proposed dates
• Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants
• Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a range of price categories and close to the conference facilities
• Adequacy of expense projections

Geographical balance with regard to ACL and EACL region in the decade prior to 2019:

• EACL: 2014 Gothenburg, Sweden; 2012 Avignon, France; 2009 Athens, Greece
• COLING: 2014 Dublin, Ireland
• ACL: 2016 Berlin, Germany; 2013 Sofia, Bulgaria; 2010 Uppsala, Sweden
• EMNLP: 2015 Lisbon, Portugal; 2014 Doha, Qatar; 2011 Edinburgh, UK

Important dates:

• November, 2016: Final call for bids
• January 31, 2017: Notify intention to submit proposal
• March 15, 2017: Draft proposals due
• Through May 1, 2017: Feedback to bidders
• May 30, 2017: Final bids due
• July 1, 2017: Bid selected

The selected location for ACL 2019 will be announced at the ACL 2017 conference (Vancouver, August, 2017).

For any queries please contact Marti Hearst, hearst@berkeley.edu, the Coordinating Committee chair, or Priscilla Rasmussen, acl@aclweb.org Please send notifications and draft proposals to the address below (email preferred):

Marti Hearst hearst@berkeley.edu University of California Berkeley 102 South Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 USA 510-642-8016