The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and Asian Federation of Natural Language Processing (AFNLP) hereby invite proposals to host the joint conference in Asia in 2009. This conference will be the 47th annual meeting of the ACL and the 4th bi-annual meeting of the IJCNLP.

At this time, we seek draft proposals from prospective bidders. Based on an evaluation of the draft proposals received, promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information as needed for the final selection.

Together, the ACL and AFNLP Executive Committees will select the General Chair, Program Committee Co-Chairs and all other Chairs for the conference (e.g., Tutorial Chair, Demo Chair, Publications Chair, Student Co-Chairs), except the Local Arrangements Chair.

Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will be responsible for activities such as arranging meeting rooms, equipment, refreshments, housing, on-site registration, participant e-mail access, security for equipment, the reception, the banquet, and working with the General Chair and the ACL and AFNLP Executive Committees to develop the budget and registration materials.

Draft proposals are due on January 15, 2007. They will be evaluated by the ACL and AFNLP Executive Committees by February 15, 2007. They will be evaluated Promising bidders will then be contacted and asked to provide further information due by March 15, 2007. The final bid will be chosen by March 30, 2007.

The conference should take place August 2009.

Draft proposals should include information on:

• Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodations, e.g., hotels, motels, student housing)
• Proposed dates
• Local Arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling)
• Local Computational Linguistics community
• Meeting venues (space for plenary sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings)
• High speed, all-ports-open, easy-to-use internet access for participants.
• A/V equipment
• Food/entertainment/banquet/receptions
• Sponsorships
• Budget estimates

Proposals will be evaluated in relation to a number of site selection criteria (unordered):

• Experience of local arrangements team
• Local CL community support
• Local government and industry support
• Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site
• Appropriateness of proposed dates
• Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants
• Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a range of price categories and close to the conference facilities
• Reasonableness of expected registration fees.
• Adequacy of budget projections and expected surplus
• Geographical and national balance with regard to the previous or currently planned conferences in Hyderabad, India (IJCNLP-2008), Australia (COLING/ACL-2006), Jeju Island, Korea (IJCNLP-2005), Hainan Islan, China (IJCNLP-2004), Sapporo, Japan (ACL-2003), and Hong Kong (ACL-2000)

The ACL conference handbook and more about ACL policies may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive.

Successful sample bids for previous conferences may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive/bids.html. We are also making available a set of spreadsheets containing information about sample costs and task lists to help you to prepare your proposal. Contact us below if you are interested in seeing these.

Professor Bonnie Dorr
Department of Computer Science and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
University of Maryland
A.V. Williams Building, College Park, MD 20723, United States
Email: bonnie AT cs.umd.edu
Phone:+1-301-405-6768
Fax:+1-301-314-9658

Professor Yuji Matsumoto
Graduate School of Information Science
Nara Institute of Science and Technology
8916-5, Takayama, Ikoma, Nara 630-0192, Japan
Email:matsu AT is.naist.jp
Phone: +81-743-72-5240
Fax: +81-743-72-5249

Important Dates:
November 17, 2006 Call for Bids Posted
November 20, 2006 Sample Costs and Task lists available upon request
January 30, 2007 Draft proposals due
February 30, 2007 ACL and AFLNLP Executive Boards evaluate and provide feedback to bidders
March 30, 2007 Promising bidders provide any requested information
April 15, 2007 Bid selected

Authors: Bonnie Dorr and Yuji Matsumoto, September 4, 2006