The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the annual ACL conference in the Americas in July or August 2023. At this time, we seek preliminary draft proposals from prospective bidders in relevant regions. Promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information for the final selection.
ACL 2023 will be organized in collaboration with NAACL as usual. The ACL 2023 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 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 at:
http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/ACL-conference-bid-template-CURRENT.xlsx
== Bid Highlights ==
Draft proposals should include information on the following:
- Estimates of the anticipated number of 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; description of any experience the team has had in organizing academic conferences, including the number of participants at those conferences)
- Local Computational Linguistics community (the size and impact of local R&D groups on NLP and related disciplines)
- 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 sponsorship
- Safety of the region/local neighbourhood (venue and proposed accommodations) for all ethnicities, sexual orientations and genders,
or a plan to ensure safety
- Physical disability access (i.e., wheelchair accessibility)
- Availability/cost of a vision assistant for blind conference participants
- Availability of a single-usage nursing room
- Onsite childcare for 10 children ages 6 months through 12 years, for all days of the conference, 8:30am-6pm, including tutorials and workshops.
- Non-gendered toilet access onsite
- Single usage onsite quiet spaces for the neuro-diverse
- Single usage onsite prayer room
- Access to food onsite for restricted diets, if there is food provided (religious constraints/vegans/vegetarians/widespread allergies and intolerances such as gluten-free)
- Local expenses estimates spreadsheet (using template provided; link above)
== Evaluation ==
Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (in no particular order):
- Experience, flexibility, and openmindedness of local arrangements team
- Local Computational Linguistics community support
- Local government and industry support
- Accessibility and attractiveness of the proposed site
- Suitability of proposed dates
- Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants
- Adequacy of accommodation and food services across 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 2023.
== Background and Important Dates ==
Location information of major regionally-relevant conferences:
- ACL: 2020 virtual (originally scheduled for Seattle, USA); 2017 Vancouver, Canada; 2014 Baltimore, USA; 2011 Portland, USA
- NAACL: 2021 Mexico City, Mexico (hybrid); 2019 Minneapolis, USA; 2018 New Orleans, USA; 2016 San Diego, USA; 2015 Denver, USA; 2013 Atlanta, USA; 2012 Montreal, Canada
- EMNLP: 2021 Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (hybrid); 2020 virtual; 2016 Austin, USA; 2013 Seattle, USA
- COLING: 2018 Santa Fe, USA
Important dates:
- December, 2020: Call for bids
- February 26, 2021: Notify intention to submit proposal
- April 23, 2021: Draft proposals due
- Through June 1, 2021: Feedback to bidders
- June 25, 2021: Final bids due
- August, 2021: Bid selected and site announced during ACL 2021
For any queries please contact Tim Baldwin (tb [at] ldwin.net: ACL2023 Coordinating Committee Chair), or Priscilla Rasmussen (acl.rasmussen [at] gmail.com).
Please send notifications of intent and draft proposals to:
Tim Baldwin
tb [at] ldwin.net