2023 Anthony C Clarke Award for the EAMT Best Thesis: awardee announcement

Nine PhD theses defended in 2023 were received as candidates for the 2022 edition of the EAMT Best Thesis Award, and all nine were eligible. 20 reviewers were recruited to examine and score the theses, considering how challenging the problem tackled in each thesis was, how relevant the results were for machine translation as a field, and what the strength of its impact in terms of scientific publications was. Two EAMT Executive Committee members also analysed all theses. It became very clear that 2023 was another very good year for PhD theses in machine translation. 

All theses had merit, all candidates had strong CVs and, therefore, it was very difficult to select a winner.

A panel of two EAMT Executive Committee members (Barry Haddow and Helena Moniz) was assembled to process the reviews and select a winner that was later ratified by the EAMT executive committee.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2023 edition of the EAMT Best Thesis Award is Marco Gaido’s’ thesis “Direct Speech Translation Toward High-Quality, Inclusive, and Augmented Systems” (FBK, Italy), supervised by Dr Marco Turchi and Dr.  Matteo Negri.

In addition, the committee judged  that the following theses, were “highly commended”:

• Jannis Vamvas: “Model-based Evaluation of Multilinguality” (University of Zurich, Switzerland), supervised by Rico Sennrich and Lena A. Jäger

• Javier Iranzo-Sánchez: “Streaming Neural Speech Translation” ( UPV, Spain), supervised by Jorge Civera and Alfons Juan 

The awardee will receive a prize of €500, together with a suitably-inscribed certificate. In addition, Dr. Gaido will present a summary of their thesis at the 25th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT 2024: https://eamt2024.sheffield.ac.uk/) which will take place from June 24th to 27th in Sheffield, UK.  In order to facilitate this, the EAMT will waive the winner’s registration costs, and will make available a travel bursary of €200.

Barry Haddow, chair, EAMT BTA award 2023

Helena Moniz, EAMT president

Program committee 

Daniel Beck,   Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Bram Vanroy,   KU Leuven

Philipp Koehn,  Johns Hopkins University

Danielle Saunders,  DeepL

Alexandra Birch,  University of Edinburgh

Felix Stahlberg,  Google

Bill Byrne,   Amazon

Sheila Castilho,  Dublin City University

John E. Ortega,     Northeastern University

Anna Currey,  Amazon

Rachel Bawden,  Inria

Xingyi Song,  University of Sheffield

Miquel Esplà-Gomis,  Universidad de Alicante

Marcello Federico,    Amazon

Antonio Toral, University of Groningen

Diptesh Kanojia,     University of Surrey

José G. C. de Souza,  Unbabel

Mikel L. Forcada,     Universidad de Alicante

Liane Guillou,     University of Edinburgh

Vera Cabarrão,  Unbabel

MTSummit Student Listener Tickets

The Asia-Pacific Association for Machine Translation (AAMT) is pleased to announce that we have set up a new discount category (Student-Listener) for students who wish to attend the 19th MT Summit. This discount was made possible by Rozetta Corporation, a Diamond Sponsor of the 19th MT Summit. Students will be able to attend all presentations online for 50 USD.
Don’t miss this opportunity and apply now!

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
　　　　　　　　MT Summit XIX (Macau)
　　　　　　Notice of discount tickets for students.
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

* Student-Listeners are limited to online participation.
* This discount is available not only to participants from universities and research institutes but also to students studying at translation and interpretation schools.
* Student-Listeners can attend all sessions held from September 4 to 8, 2023.
* Students who give presentations are not eligible for this discount.

What is MT Summit?

Machine Translation (MT) Summit is organized by a subordinate organization of the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT) every other year. This year, AAMT in charge of the Asia-Pacific region will host the event.

MT Summit is a forum for machine translation researchers and developers, manufacturers and distributors of machine translation, and users of machine translation systems. The conference discusses state-of-the-art machine translation, its key updates, and practical applications.

The 19th MT Summit

The 19th MT Summit will be held in Macau from September 4 to 8, 2023.
For more information on the 19th MT Summit, please visit the following website.

https://mtsummit2023.scimeeting.cn/en/web/index/15680_

How to apply for participation
If you are interested in participating, please register as soon as possible using the following link.

——– ————————-
▼ Please register at the following link ▼
　https://mtsummit2023.scimeeting.cn/en/web/index/15680_1530560__
——– ————————-

About Sponsorship Opportunities
If you become a sponsor, it comes with free attendee slots depending on your sponsorship level. If you are interested in sponsorship, please see the sponsor prospectus at the following website.
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
　
▼ Sponsor Prospectus ▼

https://files.sciconf.cn/upload/file/20230329/20230329184427_67389.pdf

*Sponsors are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis for a limited number. We will close applications when they reach the limit.
*Option choices are taken on a first-come, first-served basis.

<Contact Information>
Ave do Dr. Rodrigo Rodrigues, 223-225 Nam Kwong Building, 13 Andar K, Macau SAR, China
TEL: +853 2871 5616
FAX: + 2871 5606
E-mail: mtsummit2023@iccmacao.com

EAMT Sponsorship of Activities – Students’ edition – 2022

Call for Proposals 

The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) is an organisation that serves the growing community of people interested in MT and translation tools, including translators, users, developers, and researchers of this increasingly viable technology.

As part of its commitment to promote research, development and awareness about translation technologies, the EAMT is for the third consecutive year launching a call for proposals to fund MT-related activities led by students during 2023.

Purpose of the Call

The EAMT is planning to support various MT activities such as shared tasks, workshops, teaching and awareness initiatives, open-source initiatives, dataset creation and small research and development projects by its current student members. 

The EAMT particularly welcomes proposals from students in all levels of education, including undergraduates, postgraduates and PhD students. 

This call will also give priority to projects that extend work done during the Machine Translation Marathon 2022 (https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/events/mt-marathon-2022), being held in Prague, Czech Republic from 5 to 10 September 2022. 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Recent developments in MT research.
• MT evaluation methodology, metrics and results.
• Launch of MT-specific evaluation campaigns.
• New or prospective commercial users of MT technology.
• MT environments (workflow, support tools, etc.).
• Interaction between users and MT systems.
• MT combined with other technologies (translation memories, speech translation, cross-language information retrieval, multilingual text categorization, multilingual text summarization, etc.).
• MT for less-resourced languages: development, usage, etc.
• MT in the social internet: new uses, new modes of development.
• MT for crisis management. 
• Training events on MT, particularly on recent developments.
• Events to disseminate MT, especially to the wider public (including shared tasks).
• Creation of datasets for MT research.

All proposals will be screened by a review committee that consists of EAMT Executive Committee members and possibly a few appointed external experts if necessary.

Submission information

Eligibility requirements

In order to qualify for funding, the individual making the proposal must be a confirmed student member of the EAMT at submission time (Membership information: http://www.eamt.org/membership.php). Applicants will also need formal approval from their supervisor.

It is important to emphasise that projects are expected to be student-led. Therefore, although we welcome projects showing collaboration with industry and other academic partners, the project is expected to directly benefit the students own career and/or project. 

Selection criteria

• The proposed activity should be of direct interest to the MT community at large: researchers, developers, vendors, translators and/or users of MT technologies.
• The proposal shall clearly describe the purpose of the project and include measurable mid-project milestones for which a report should be submitted (see below).
• Preference will be given to projects which by nature will involve and be beneficial for several persons, as for instance conferences, seminars, workshops, shared tasks and tutorials.
• Proposals with a significant, clearly identified impact on the MT community (through the development, dissemination or use of project results) are those most likely to be accepted.
• Proposals that bring together different aspects of MT will be especially valued.
• The proposal should be clearly justified as being technically and/or scientifically sound.
• The quality and efficiency of the implementation of the proposal will be evaluated.
• The budget should be adequate for the proposed objectives and the actual implementation of the activity.

Budget

EAMT anticipates funding several proposals for various activities. 

The total foreseen EAMT Budget for this call is around €4,000 to cover all granted projects. The maximum amount EAMT can grant for a single project will be €4,000. During the negotiation stage, budget adjustments may be required by the EAMT executive committee. This means that the EAMT may only offer to partially fund a project. 

A project being granted financial support by EAMT according to this call will receive 50% of the granted amount at the start of the project. The proposer will receive the remaining 50% when the mid-project progress report has been received by the EAMT Secretary and substantiates that the mid-project milestones are met, and furthermore provided that the proposer is still a current member of the EAMT.

Contact for enquiries

Carolina Scarton

EAMT Secretary

e-mail: c.scarton@sheffield.ac.uk

Submission procedure

Overview

Candidates should submit their proposals as a single PDF file, written in English, that is composed of the elements described below.

1. Proposal description: 2-page maximum
2. Person/organisation experience: 1-page maximum
3. Budget and project planning overview: 1-page maximum
4. Supervisor’s letter of approval: 1-page maximum

Proposals should be submitted no later than the deadline (see Important Dates below) through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eamt2023 (Submission type: Project Proposals). Authors are encouraged to use the template available at http://www.eamt.org/eamt2020-projects.zip. Templates for both LaTeX and Microsoft Word are available.

Detailed description of sections of the proposal

1. Proposal summary (two pages) in English
   1. Complete contact information of the candidate.
   2. A clear and detailed description of the proposed event or activity.
   3. A statement on why this event or activity would be helpful for the community and the development of your studies (you should establish a clear connection between this activity and your degree project). 
   4. A statement justifying why EAMT should support this event or activity.
2. Experience of the proposing person in the field (up to one page)
   1. It may include a list of experience and related skills of the participants of the team (your team may be composed by your supervisors and potential collaborators).   
3. Budget and project planning overview (up to one page)
   1. A breakdown of the costs estimated for the entire activity or event.
   2. Clear milestones and deliverables must be indicated.
   3. An identification of the support requested from EAMT and possible other supporting funds.
4. Supervisor’s letter of approval (up to one page)
   1. A letter from your supervisor stating that they approve your project submission and that they will act as fund manager if needed (please note that EAMT needs to make payments into a research account set up at your institution). 

Important Dates

• Circulation of the Call: August 1, 2022
• Submission deadline for proposals: October 7, 2022, 23:59 CEST October 21, 2022, 23:59 CEST 
• Acceptance notifications and negotiations to start on: December 7, 2022 December 16, 2022

In case of acceptance:

• Mid-project progress report due: June 30, 2023, 23:59 CEST
• Final report and deliverables due: January 31, 2024, 23:59 CET

Additional provisions

• Only complete proposals will be reviewed.
• All information submitted with proposals will be regarded as confidential and will only be used in the context of this project.
• Following the recommendations from the reviewers and EAMT executive members, projects may be approved with amendments that will be discussed during the negotiation stage. 
• The funded projects may be required to report at the EAMT events (e.g. Poster at the EAMT conference, a short progress report for the General assembly, etc.). If you think you will not have funds for attending the EAMT event you can add travel costs to your budget. 
• The EAMT should be acknowledged in all materials related to the project, activity or initiative.

No obligation to award the proposal

The EAMT shall be under no obligation to fund the proposals pursuant to this call for proposals. EAMT shall not be liable for any compensation with respect to candidates whose proposals have not been accepted. Nor shall it be liable in the event of it deciding not to award the proposal.

EAMT extends all 2021 memberships: letter to EAMT members in 2021

Dear EAMT member,
As you are aware, we are moving the EAMT legal location from Switzerland to Belgium. As part of this process, we have been working since last year to open a bank account in Belgium.Unfortunately, this is not an easy task and despite our best efforts, we are still dealing with bureaucracy (we are almost there, though). 
Because of the above, you probably noticed that we did not send the reminders for membership renewals (usually due in March). 
Since it is not possible to predict when our new bank account will be available and in recognition of your amazing support to our association during the pandemic, the EAMT executive committee decided to extend all 2021 memberships to cover the year of 2022 (this includes Institutional/Non-profit and Corporate memberships). 
Therefore, you do not need to renew your membership this year and we will contact you in 2023! If you have already renewed, our treasure will be in contact with you to decide the best course of action. 
PLEASE NOTE: EAMT 2022 conference registration is still needed if you are joining us in Ghent!
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions. 

EAMT 2018 Translator Survey: glossary and report

As a result of a survey disseminated among translators before EAMT 2018, a glossary and a report were produced. The glossary collected the technical terms that most translators surveyed selected as the ones they would like to be defined for them. The report and the associated slides presented at the conference highlight the most significant results of a survey on translators’ perceptions of machine translation.