Call for conference bids

Calls for Conference Bids

Conference Handbook - Call for Conference Bids

This page contains sample calls for bids to host the conference.

Procedure

The Exec's nominee (currently, the VP) makes a general call for bids to the international community. He or she collects the responses and presents them to the Exec. Final selection usually involves a site visit by members of the Exec to the location(s) of interest; usually, the treasurer and the ACL business manager travel for the site visit.

Call for Bids to Host ACL-20

58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the conference in the America region in July or August 2020. 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.

ACL 2020 will be organized in collaboration with NAACL as usual. The ACL 2020 Coordinating Committee, made up of representatives of the ACL and representatives from the NAACL, will select the General Chair and the Program Committee Co-Chairs for the conference. Draft proposals should identify Local Arrangements Chair(s), 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-CURRENT.xlsx

Bid Highlights: Draft proposals include information on the following:
- Estimates of the anticipated number of the registrants
- Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodation; dining options; capability to host the registrants predicted)
- 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 academic conferences and the number of participants at those conferences)
- Local Computational Linguistics community (the size and impact of local R&D groups on NLP and related disciplinaries)
- Meeting venues (space for plenary and parallel 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 NAACL region in the decade prior to 2020. Here is the location information of major related conferences:
NAACL: 2019 (to be decided), 2018 New Orleans, USA; 2016 San Diego, USA; 2015 Denver, USA; 2013 Atlanta, USA; 2012, Montreal, Canada; 2010 Los Angeles, USA
COLING: 2018 Santa Fe, USA
ACL: 2017 Vancouver, Canada; 2014 Baltimore, USA; 2011 Portland, USA
EMNLP: 2019 (to be decided), EMNLP 2018 (to be decided), 2016 Austin, USA; 2013 Seattle, USA; 2010 Massachusetts, USA
AAAI: 2020 (to be decided), 2019 (to be decided), 2018 New Orleans, USA; 2017 San Francisco, USA; 2016, Phoenix, USA; 2015 Austin, USA; 2014 Québec City, Canada; 2013 Bellevue, USA; 2012 Toronto, Canada; 2011 San Francisco, USA; 2010 Atlanta, USA

Important dates:
- November, 2017: Final call for bids
- January 31, 2018: Notify intention to submit proposal
- March 15, 2018: Draft proposals due
- Through May 1, 2018: Feedback to bidders
- May 30, 2018: Final bids due
- July 1, 2018: Bid selected
- The selected location for ACL 2020 will be announced at the ACL 2018 conference (Melbourne, July 15 - July 20, 2018).

For any queries please contact Ming Zhou, mingzhou@microsoft.com, the ACL2020 Coordinating Committee Chair, or Priscilla Rasmussen, rasmusse@ptd.net.

Please send notifications and draft proposals to: Ming Zhou mingzhou@microsoft.com

(Author: Ming Zhou, Dec. 2017)