The European Chapter of the ACL (EACL) is the primary professional association for computational linguistics in Europe. It provides a number of services to its members and the community:

• The 18th EACL conference will be held in St. Julians, Malta, from 17 to 22 of March, 2024. As the flagship European conference in the field of computational linguistics, EACL welcomes European and international researchers covering a broad spectrum of research areas that are concerned with computational approaches to natural language.
• Support for educational initiatives in the field -- for example, EACL-sponsored courses at ESSLLI summer schools and student grants for selected Computational Linguistics events.

Please browse this site to find out more about EACL and its activities.

Many of the initial motivations for the foundation of EACL are no longer relevant, mainly due to the Internet, online banking, and the transformation of ACL from an American to an international organisation in 1997. Nevertheless EACL has remained the primary professional association for computational linguistics in Europe, serving its members not only through its biennial meeting, but also through support for educational initiatives in the field -- for example, EACL-sponsored introductory courses in CL at ESSLLI summer schools, the European Masters in Speech and Language, and studentships at specialist workshops.

The flagship event remains the EACL conference, whose inaugural edition was held in Pisa, September 1983, with Giacomo Ferrari as the conference chair. By all accounts it was a huge success, and set the stage for a very productive series of conferences. Looking back through the proceedings of that conference, one discerns a strong European flavour compared to ACL. For example, of the 32 papers at EACL'83, 10 were about languages other than English, compared to only 2 out of 25 at ACL'83.

• Chair: eacl-chair@aclweb.org
• For general enquiries about EACL, email eacl-secretary@aclweb.org
• Treasurer: eacl-treasurer@aclweb.org
• For specific enquiries, please contact the relevant EACL Board member.

EACL, as an official organization representing computational linguistics (CL) in Europe, encourages the general development of educational programs for CL that promote the field and encourage its diffusion throughout Europe. In particular, EACL encourages programmes that operate at a multi-national level, such as exchange support programs for students and faculty.

However, EACL does not have the capacity to evaluate any specific CL educational programme, and thus cannot provide official approval or accreditation for such programmes. Accordingly, general support for specific programmes can only be granted in such a way that it cannot be used in a competitive way relative to other comparable activities.

Scale

Each year, the EACL may make available a limited number of sponsorships each worth a relatively small amount of money. Sponsorships are awarded only if the EACL budget allows it.

As an indication, in recent years the EACL has typically awarded 10-15 sponsorships of approximately 500 Euros each.

Focus

In awarding sponsorships, EACL focuses on education in computational linguistics in the geographical area of the EACL. Priority is given to students from Eastern Europe and more generally, to students from countries with hard currency problems (within the geographical area covered by EACL).

In the past, EACL has sponsored introductory courses at European summer-schools (in the form of a contribution towards the presenters' expenses), participation at summer-schools (funding tuition fees and subsistence expenses for students who would otherwise not have been able to come) and participation at student workshops at EACL conferences (contribution towards student-presenters' expenses).

Visibility

In return for sponsorship, EACL expects some visibility (for instance, the sponsorship is announced in a workshop programme and website etc.). A request for sponsorship must include a description of the visibility for EACL generated by the sponsorship.

Procedure

A request for sponsorship should identify a concrete purpose. Indeed, EACL will not sponsor a school or workshop in general, but it will sponsor a particular course, tutorial, etc., or it will sponsor participation for a particular group of students etc.

A request for sponsorship should contain the following information:

• A short description of the event involved (summer school, conference, student workshp etc.) and of its relevance to computational linguistics
• A proposal for ensuring EACL visibility in return for sponsorship
• A specification of the intended use of sponsorship -- this should state the precise purpose of the sponsorhip (e.g., fee waiving for students/participants, travel grants, accommodation cost) and a clear description of how funding will be used.
• Motivation and justification for request.

When the sponsorship is requested in view of funding the participation of individuals (students, scholars, lecturers etc.) to the event, the selection of the sponsorship recipients will be done jointly by the EACL and the requesting party as follows:

• The requesting party will make a selection and submit it for approval to the EACL board.
• The selection will be provided to the EACL together with any information judged relevant. For instance, in the case of a request for supporting student participation, the following information about the candidates should be included:
  • Name, email address, affiliation and status (PhD year etc.) of the candidate
  • Source and amount of yearly income
  • Letter of motivation
  • Whether the candidate makes a presentation at the event
  • Proof of student status
  • Letter of recommendation (e.g., from supervisor)

Requests for sponsorships should be directed by email to one of the EACL board members, who passes on the request to the board.

The EACL board decides within a month on a sponsorship request. Sponsorships are normally requested by and awarded to conferences, workshops, summer schools etc. Sponsorship requests from individuals will not be considered.

In order for EACL to endorse a conference or similar event, two criteria must be fulfilled:

• Relevance: The event must have a clear connection to computational linguistics and to the geographical area of EACL.
• Quality: The event should satisfy basic requirements on scientific quality concerning program committee, review procedure, etc.

The endorsement of an event by EACL entails the following:

• Organizers must say that the event is endorsed by EACL in their announcements (website, call for papers, call for participation, etc.).
• Organizers must put a link to the EACL website (http://www.eacl.org/) on their website.
• EACL will put a link to the event website on the EACL website.
• If there are published proceedings, the organizers must mention in the proceedings that the event is endorsed by EACL.