Special Edition: EAMT 2020 sponsors funding

Call for Proposals 

The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) is an organization 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 tenth consecutive year launching a call for proposals to fund MT-related activities during 2022.

Special Edition

EAMT 2020 was organised virtually in November 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, since the conference was planned to happen in person in May 2020, our sponsors had already transferred their funds to the local organisers in the beginning of 2020. Once it was clear EAMT 2020 was not going to be held in-person and, therefore, would cost considerably less than planned, EAMT 2020 sponsors agreed to donate the funding to the association and we committed to convert this into sponsorship of activities for our members. 

In summary, exceptionally this year, we have a call for proposals with a budget of €20,000. As defined later in this call, the maximum amount EAMT can grant for a single project will be €10,000. We are extremely thankful to the EAMT 2020 sponsors, namely, Banco Portugués de Investimento (platinum), STAR Group and Microsoft (silver), Unbabel, Text&Form, TAUS, Pangeanic, and Crosslang (bronze), and Apertium and Prompsit (supporters).

Purpose of the Call

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

The EAMT particularly encourages proposals from early career researchers.

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.

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 institution(s) or the individual making the proposal must be a confirmed member of the EAMT at submission time.

Membership information: http://www.eamt.org/membership.php

Selection criteria

• The proposed activity should be of direct interest to the MT community at large: researchers, developers, vendors translators and 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 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. There are two categories of proposals. The member institutions’ category and the individual members’ category.

The total foreseen EAMT Budget for this call is around €20,000 to cover all granted projects. The maximum amount EAMT can grant for a single project will be €10,000. 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/organization experience: 1-page maximum
3. Budget and project planning overview: 1-page maximum

Proposals should be submitted no later than the deadline (see Important Dates below) through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eamt2021 (Submission type: Project Proposals 2022 (special edition)). 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 description (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.
   4. A statement justifying why EAMT should support this event or activity.
2. Experience of the proposing person/organization in the field (up to one page).
   1. It may include a list of experience and related skills of the participants of the team.
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.

Important Dates

• Circulation of the Call: September 8, 2021
• Submission deadline for proposals: October 15, 2021, 23:59 CEST October 30, 2021, 23:59 CEST
• Acceptance notifications and negotiations to start on: December 14, 2021 December 21, 2021

In case of acceptance:

• Mid-project progress report due: June 30, 2022, 23:59 CEST
• Final report and deliverables due: January 31, 2023, 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.), without any claim for additional funds.
• 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.