EAMT best thesis award

2022 Anthony C Clarke Award for the EAMT Best Thesis: awardee announcement

Nine PhD theses defended in 2022 were received as candidates for the 2022 edition of the EAMT Best Thesis Award, and all nine were eligible. 28 reviewers and six EAMT Executive Committee members 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 2022 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 (Carolina Scarton 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 awardee of the 2022 edition of the EAMT Best Thesis is Biao Zhang’s thesis “Towards Efficient Universal Neural Machine Translation” (University of Edinburgh, UK), supervised by Dr Rico Sennrich and Dr Ivan Titov.

The awardee will receive a prize of €500, together with a suitably-inscribed certificate. In addition, Dr. Zhang will present a summary of their thesis at the 24th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT 2023: https://events.tuni.fi/eamt23/) which will take place from June 12th to 15th in Tampere, Finland. In order to facilitate this, the EAMT will waive the winner’s registration costs, and will make available a travel bursary of €200.

Helena Moniz, EAMT President

Carolina Scarton, EAMT Secretary

Program committee 

Rachel Bawden, Inria

Daniel Beck, The University of Melbourne

William Byrne, University of Cambridge

José G. C. de Souza, Unbabel

Vera Cabarrão, Unbabel / INESC-ID

Sheila Castilho, Dublin City University

Anna Currey, Amazon Web Services

Mattia Antonino Di Gangi, AppTek

Maha Elbayad, LIG/ Inria

Miquel Esplà-Gomis, Universitat d’Alacant

Marcello Federico, Amazon AI

Mikel Forcada, DLSI – Universitat d’Alacant

Barry Haddow, The University of Edinburgh

Diptesh Kanojia, IIT Bombay

Philipp Koehn, Johns Hopkins University

Helena Moniz, INESC/FLUL

Mary Nurminen, Tampere University

Constantin Orasan, University of Surrey

John E. Ortega, Northeastern University

Santanu Pal, Wipro Limited

Pavel Pecina, Charles University

Maja Popovic, ADAPT Centre @ DCU

Celia Rico, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Víctor M. Sánchez-Cartagena, Universitat d’Alacant

Marina Sánchez-Torrón, Unbabel

Danielle Saunders, University of Cambridge

Dimitar Shterionov, Tilburg University

Felix Stahlberg, Google Research

Arda Tezcan, Ghent University

Antonio Toral, University of Groningen

Ualsher Tukeyev, al-Farabi Kazakh National University

Bram Vanroy, KU Leuven; Ghent University

Longyue Wang, Tencent AI Lab

EAMT conference

EAMT 2023: Bursaries for Translators – Call for Participation 

Call for Participation 

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 opens a call for a small number of bursaries to support translators and Translation Studies’ students, in attending the 24th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT 2023) conference will be held in Tampere, Finland, from June 12th to June 15th.

Purpose of the Call

This call is dedicated to support translators and Translation Studies’ students, working or studying in European, Middle-Eastern or African countries, that do not have fundings to attend the conference. 

The EAMT particularly encourages applications from early-career translators.

All applications will be screened by EAMT executive committee members.

Application information

Eligibility requirements

In order to qualify for this call, the individual must be a translator or enrolled in a Master or PhD course in Translation Studies. The support is only available to individuals working or studying in European, Middle-Eastern or African countries. Freelance translators and students will have priority. We will also give priority to people with accepted papers in the main conference.

Selection criteria

  • The selection will be made based on the information submitted to the provided Google Forms (link below).
  • One of the fields in the form is a “motivation letter”, where you should describe your motivation for attending the EAMT 2023 conference and explain why you do not have other funds to sponsor your attendance.
  • You should also submit a CV, highlighting your years of experience in the translation area and your experience working with MT.
  • For students: you should also submit an official proof of student status, signed by your University.

Bursaries

EAMT anticipates funding several applications. Selected participants will be announced on the 21st April 2023 and will receive complimentary membership in the EAMT for 2023 and 2024, free registration at the EAMT 2023 conference and paid accommodation in Tampere.

Contact for enquiries

Carolina Scarton

EAMT Secretary

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

Applications

Candidates should submit their applications via a Google Form: https://forms.gle/TzXQaRLypJD1t7qB7

Important Dates

  • Circulation of the Call: April 3rd, 2023
  • Submission deadline for applications: April 14th, 2023, 23:59 CEST
  • Notification: April 21st, 2023

Additional provisions

  • Only complete applications will be reviewed.
  • All information submitted with applications will be regarded as confidential and will only be used in the context of this call.
  • You may be asked to share the accommodation room with other awardees. However, we will commit to respect any requirements / concerns that you inform us (e.g. religion, gender, etc).

No obligation to award the bursaries

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

EAMT conference

EAMT 2023: Support for participants from low-income countries and war zones

Call for Participation 

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 opens a call for a small number of bursaries to support EAMT 2023 attendees from areas affected by war and low-income countries. The 24th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT 2023) conference will be held in Tampere, Finland, from June 12th to June 15th.

Purpose of the Call

This call is dedicated to support EAMT 2023 attendees that do not have fundings to attend the conference, from areas affected by war or low-income countries in Europe, Middle East or Africa. 

The EAMT particularly encourages applications from early career researchers.

All applications will be screened by EAMT executive committee members.

Application information

Eligibility requirements

In order to qualify for this call, the individual must be a student or an employee of an institution located in areas affected by war or in low-income countries in Europe, Middle East or Africa, that would not be able to attend the conference without this support. Students and early-career researchers/academics will have priority. We will also give priority to people with accepted papers in the main conference.

Selection criteria

  • The selection will be made based on the information submitted to the provided Google Forms (link below).
  • One of the fields in the form is a “motivation letter”, where you should describe your motivation for attending the EAMT 2023 conference and explain why you do not have other funds to sponsor your attendance.
  • You should also submit a CV, highlighting your years of experience in the MT area.

Bursaries

EAMT anticipates funding several applications. Selected participants will be announced on the 21st April 2023 and will receive complimentary membership in the EAMT for 2023 and 2024, free registration at the EAMT 2023 conference and paid accommodation in Tampere.

Contact for enquiries

Carolina Scarton

EAMT Secretary

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

Applications

Candidates should submit their applications via a Google Form: https://forms.gle/HQNF5jwEDT1bG1NK6

Important Dates

  • Circulation of the Call: April 3rd, 2023
  • Submission deadline for applications: April 14th, 2023, 23:59 CEST
  • Notification: April 21st, 2023

Additional provisions

  • Only complete applications will be reviewed.
  • All information submitted with applications will be regarded as confidential and will only be used in the context of this call.
  • You may be asked to share the accommodation room with other awardees. However, we will commit to respect any requirements / concerns that you inform us (e.g. religion, gender, etc).

No obligation to award the bursaries

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

Latest

EAMT Sponsorship of Activities – 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 eleventh consecutive year launching a call for proposals to fund MT-related activities during 2023.

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 €10,000 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/organisation 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=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 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/organisation 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: 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.), 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.

EAMT conference

EAMT 2022 – Call for Papers

Call for papers

The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) invites everyone interested in machine translation and translation-related tools and resources ― developers, researchers, users, translation and localization professionals and managers ― to participate in this conference.

Driven by the state of the art, the research community will demonstrate their cutting-edge research and results. Professional machine translation users will provide insight into successful MT implementation of machine translation (MT) in business scenarios as well as implementation scenarios involving large corporations, governments, or NGOs. Translation studies scholars and translation practitioners are also invited to share their first-hand MT experience, which will be addressed during a special track.

We expect to receive manuscripts in these four categories:

(R) RESEARCH PAPERS

Submissions (up to 10 pages, including references) are invited for reports of significant research results in any aspect of machine translation and related areas. Such reports should include a substantial evaluation component, or have a strong theoretical and/or methodological contribution where results and in-depth evaluations may not be appropriate. Papers are welcome on all topics in the areas of machine translation and translation-related technologies, including:

  • Deep-learning approaches for MT and MT evaluation;
  • Advances in classical MT paradigms: statistical, rule-based, and hybrid approaches;
  • Comparison of various MT approaches;
  • Technologies for MT deployment: quality estimation, domain adaptation, etc.;
  • MT in special settings: low resources, massive resources, high volume, low computing resources;
  • MT applications: translation/localization aids, speech-to-speech, speech-to-text, optical character recognition, MT for user generated content (blogs, social networks), MT in Computer-aided language learning, etc.;
  • Linguistic resources for MT: dictionaries, terminology, corpora, etc.;
  • MT evaluation techniques, metrics, and evaluation results;
  • Human factors in MT and user interfaces;
  • Related multilingual technologies: natural language generation, information retrieval, text categorization, text summarization, information extraction, etc.

Papers should describe original work. They should emphasize completed work rather than intended work, and should indicate clearly the state of completion of the reported results. Where appropriate, concrete evaluation results should be included.

Papers should be anonymized, prepared according to the templates specified below, and no longer than 10 pages (including references); the resulting PDFs submitted to EasyChair EAMT 2022 page (submission type: EAMT2022 Research).





(U) USER STUDIES

Submissions (up to 10 pages, including references) are invited for reports on case studies and implementation experience with MT in small or medium-size businesses in the language industry, as well as implementation scenarios involving large corporations, governments, or NGOs. Contributions are welcome on the following topics:

  • Integrating MT and computer-assisted translation into a translation production workflow (e.g. transforming terminology glossaries into MT resources, optimizing translation memory/MT thresholds, mixing online and offline tools, using interactive MT, dealing with MT confidence scores);
  • Use of MT to improve translation or localization workflows (e.g. reducing turnaround times, improving translation consistency, increasing the scope of globalization projects);
  • Managing change when implementing and using MT (e.g. switching between multiple MT systems, limiting degradations when updating or upgrading an MT system);
  • Implementing open-source MT in the SME or enterprise (e.g. strategies to get support, reports on taking pilot results into full deployment, examples of advanced customization sought and obtained thanks to the open-source paradigm, collaboration within open-source MT projects);
  • Evaluating MT in a real-world setting (e.g. error detection strategies employed, metrics used, productivity or translation quality gains achieved);
  • Post-editing strategies and tools (e.g. limitations of traditional translation quality assurance tools, challenges associated with post-editing guidelines);
  • Legal issues associated with MT, especially MT in the cloud (e.g. copyright, privacy);
  • Using MT in social networking or real-time communication (e.g. enterprise support chat, multilingual content for social media);
  • Implementing MT to process multilingual content for assimilation purposes (e.g. cross-lingual information retrieval, MT for e-discovery or spam detection, MT for highly dynamic content);
  • Implementing MT standards.

Papers should highlight problems and solutions in addition to describing MT integration processes and project settings. Where solutions do not seem to exist, suggestions for MT researchers and developers should be clearly emphasized. For user papers produced by academics, we require co-authorship with the actual users.

Papers should be formatted according to the templates specified below, no longer than 10 pages (including references), and submitted as PDF files to the EasyChair EAMT 2022 page (submission type: EAMT2022 User). Anonymization is not required in the User track submissions.

Please note that 10 pages is the maximum number of pages. Innovative and professional submissions of any length will be evaluated by the committee.

(P) PROJECT/PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Submissions (2 pages, including references) are invited to report new, interesting:

  • Tools for machine translation, computer aided translation, and the like (including commercial products and open-source software). The authors should be ready to present the tools in the form of demos or posters during the conference;
  • Research projects related to machine translation. The authors should be ready to present the projects in the form of posters during the conference. This follows on from the successful ‘project villages’ held at the last EAMT conferences.

Abstracts should be formatted according to the templates specified below. Anonymization is not required. The abstracts should be no longer than 2 pages (including references), and submitted as PDF files to the EasyChair EAMT 2022 page (submission type: EAMT2022 Products-Projects).

(T) TRANSLATORS’ TRACK

The use of machine translation by professional translators has an important social and economic impact due to the multilingualism of globalized societies. Translation practitioners deal with MT output in a wide variety of environments (inside or outside CAT tools, post-editing or drafting for inspiration, managing projects, training and improving engines) and, for this reason, they play a key role in the translation workflow and in the advance of MT.

This conference invites translation practitioners and translation scholars to share their views and observations based on their day-to-day experience through submissions reporting on issues such as:

  • Measurements of comparative effort (time/keystrokes/cognitive) in translation practices involving MT and their impact on the profession;
  • Impact of MT on translators’ work: processes, new invoicing methods (for example, using TER for matching), applicability;
  • Psycho-social aspects of MT adoption (ergonomics, motivation, and social impact on the profession);
  • Error analysis and post-editing strategies (including automatic post-editing and automation strategies);
  • The use of translators’ metadata and user activity data in MT development;
  • Freelance translators’ independent use of MT (e.g. for individual productivity and not necessarily a customer requirement);
  • MT and usability;
  • MT in literary, audiovisual, game localization and creative texts;
  • MT and interpreting;
  • Ethical and confidentiality issues when using MT;
  • MT in various scenarios including health care communication, crisis translation, and climate change;
  • MT in the translation/interpreting classroom.

Accepted translator track papers will be published in the conference proceedings. Please make sure to consult and cite previously published work before submitting your paper.

Submissions should be anonymized, prepared according the templates specified below, and no longer than 10 pages (including references). Proposals should be submitted as PDF files to the EasyChair EAMT 2022 page (submission type: EAMT2022 Translator).

Please note that 10 pages is the maximum number of pages. Submissions of any length will be evaluated by the committee.

PAPER TEMPLATES

Use the templates below to prepare your submission:

IMPORTANT DEADLINES
  • Submissions deadline: 01 April 2022
  • Notification to authors: 26 April 2022
  • Author Registration: 06 May 2022
  • Camera ready deadline: 06 May 2022

All deadlines are at 23.59 CEST.

GENERAL CHAIR

Helena Moniz, EAMT President, University of Lisbon, INESC-ID

TRACK CHAIRS

Loïc Barrault, Le Mans Université (Research track)

Marta R. Costa-jussà, Univ. Politècnica de Catalunya (Research track)

Ellie Kemp, CLEAR Global (User track)

Spyridon Pilos, European Court of Auditors (User track)

Christophe Declercq, Univ. of Utrecht, Univ. of Leuven &
Univ. College London (Translators’ track)

Maarit Koponen, Univ. of Eastern Finland (Translators’ track)

Mikel L. Forcada, Univ. d’Alacant (Project/Product track)

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Lieve Macken, LT3, Ghent University (co-chair)

Andrew Rufener, CrossLang (co-chair)

Joachim Van den Bogaert, CrossLang

Joke Daems, LT3, Ghent University

Arda Tezcan, LT3, Ghent University

Bram Vanroy, LT3, Ghent University

Latest

Obituary: W. John Hutchins, librarian and historian of MT

It is with deep sadness that I have just read that last January, 19, 2021, Dr. William John Hutchins passed away at the age of 81. 

John, a linguist and information scientist, was born in St. Pancras, London, on January 27, 1939. He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in French and German at the University of Nottingham in 1960 and obtained a diploma in librarianship at University College London in 1962. 

He worked as assistant librarian at Durham University (1962–1965) and at the University of Sheffield (1965–1971), and then as assistant librarian (1971–1980) and sub-librarian (1980–1998) at the University of East Anglia.

In 2000 he obtained his PhD degree at the University of East Anglia. In addition to authoring numerous articles in journals and conferences about machine translation since 1963, he is particularly well known for the book An Introduction to Machine Translation (1992) which he co-authored with Harold Somers.

John’s service to the machine translation community, most of it after retirement, has been outstanding. After serving as editor of the UEA Papers in Linguistics, (1976–1982), he was editor of MT News International, the bulletin of the International Association for Machine Translation (1992–1997), president of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT, 1995–2004) and of the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT, 1999–2001), and editor of the Compendium of Translation Software (1992–2012).

John leveraged his experience as a librarian and machine translation scholar to become the librarian and the historian of the field of machine translation. In the last few decades, he was the curator of one of the best resources about machine translation, the Machine Translation Archive. The service is temporarily offline but the IAMT is working hard to host it again as soon as possible and has commissioned the transformation and transfer of a large part of the information to the ACL Anthology, some of which is already available there.

The International Association for Machine Translation has recognized John’s dedication twice, first with the IAMT Award of Honour (2001) and with a unique Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

Harold (Harry) Somers, who was professor of Language Engineering at the University of Manchester and editor of the journal Machine Translation, says:

John was a truly great and important contributor to the field of machine translation, in his own unique way. I was fortunate enough to have him as a collaborator when we produced what was —I think— the first genuine text book for students of MT. I like to think that students found that book useful, even after the statistical MT revolution made a good number of the chapters fairly quickly out of date. What perhaps many did not realise is that John’s work on MT was entirely a labour of love, a kind of hobby, all completed in his own spare time: his job as a librarian did not include working on the MT Archive, nor I think did his employers properly realise and reward his fantastic contribution to the field. We were extremely fortunate to benefit from his skills: from a scientific viewpoint he was an informed observer free of any of the prejudices of the developer or researcher with his own theories and approaches to push. I have been away from the field for a good few years now, but working with John was certainly a highlight of my career, and I am sure his memory will be honoured far into the future.

Tony Clarke, treasurer of the EAMT for so many years, says:

I can only endorse all that has been already said about John and his academic achievements. I was always struck by his warmth and humility and his unassuming manner. Even though he was basically a fairly shy person, once you got talking to him, he could really open up and even surprise you with a joke or two. My wife, Susanne, used to talk to him about England and had some really interesting conversations.  I simply remember John as a warm-hearted and pleasant companion whom I am blessed and honoured to have known.  May he rest In peace.

Viggo Hansen, who has been part of EAMT for decades, as conference organizer, secretary, and recently as co-opted counsellor to the EAMT president adds:

I met John at the MT Summit in Luxembourg in 1995, when John was elected EAMT president. I am not a linguist but a user (at that time one of the few) using MT commercially. I had the pleasure to be the EAMT secretary during John’s nine years as EAMT President. When being with John you were in good company. He was an extremely interesting person and had a very broad range of interests. When we had talked enough about MT we could always relax in a good talk about football.

I met John in Exeter, in a workshop called MT 2000, which he had organized, and then many other times during these years. It was always a great pleasure to chat with such a nice, knowledgeable, and generous man. The last time I spent some time with John was at his home in Norwich, in 2017. He showed me how he planned to scan and catalogue shelves and shelves of historical machine translation publications and add them to the Archive. By the way, as my predecessor Andy Way points out, as a Norwich City FC season ticket holder, John would have been delighted to see the Canaries promoted again to the Premier League, after winning the Championship last Saturday.

I feel hugely indebted to John Hutchins, and I think many of you in the machine translation community do too. We will have to work together to preserve and continue his work on our behalf.

Sit ei terra levis.
Mikel L. Forcada
President of the European Association for Machine Translation
May 13, 2021

EAMT conference

EAMT 2021 Ghent postponed until spring 2022

After evaluating the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and, more specifically, the likelihood of unrestricted international travel, and after considering the limitations and inconvenience of yet another online meeting to the schedule of everyone interested, the Executive Committee of the European Association for Machine Translation and the organizing committee of EAMT 2021 Ghent have jointly decided to postpone the 23rd Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT 2021) to the spring of 2022, when we expect that a large part of the European population will have been vaccinated and international travel regulations will make it possible to host an in-person conference in Ghent, Belgium. We are also very thankful to all six track co-chairs that had been appointed for agreeing to serve in EAMT 2022; therefore, we expect to issue a call for papers by the end of 2021. Please make sure to visit http://EAMT.org regularly to keep informed.

April 27, 2021

Mikel L. Forcada President,
EAMT General Chair,
EAMT 2021.

Latest

EAMT Sponsorship of Activities: Students’ edition (INSTRUCTIONS UPDATED)

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 launching a new call for proposals to fund MT-related activities led by students during 2021.

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. 

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. Applicants will also need formal approval from their PhD supervisor.

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/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/organization 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=eamt2021 (Submission type: Project Proposals – Students). 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 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 18, 2020
  • Submission deadline for proposals: October 16, 2020, 23:59 CEST *October 30, 2020, 23:59 CET*
  • Acceptance notifications and negotiations to start on: December 7, 2020 December 14, 2020

In case of acceptance:

  • Mid-project progress report due: June 30, 2021, 23:59 CEST
  • Final report and deliverables due: January 31, 2022, 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 its deciding not to award the proposal.

Latest

EAMT Sponsorship of Activities (DEADLINE EXTENDED)

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 2021.

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.

The EAMT particularly encourages proposals from young members.

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 €10,000 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

For general enquiries please contact:

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). 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 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: August 18, 2020
  • Submission deadline for proposals: October 16, 2020, 23:59 CEST October 30, 2020, 23:59 CEST
  • Acceptance notifications and negotiations to start on: December 7, 2020 December 14, 2020

In case of acceptance:

  • Mid-project progress report due: June 30, 2021, 23:59 CEST
  • Final report and deliverables due: January 31, 2022, 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 its deciding not to award the proposal.