Overview

Our financial support program has the general aims of:

• Encouraging and enabling conference participation by colleagues who are contributing actively to the conference, or to other goals of the consortium
• Enabling conference participation by member colleagues with more severe difficulty finding travel funds
• Encouraging the broadest possible representation at the conference, across member institutions and across professional roles

We’re trying to achieve those goals through three types of support: registration fee waivers, hotel accommodations, and travel support. AMICAL members’ eligibility for each type of support depends partly on their institution’s membership category:

Find out:

• Your institution’s membership category
• Definition of “active roles” (which are slightly different this year)

Travel support

Applications are now closed.

Travel support is awarded through an application-based, competitive process. AMICAL can cover airfare for approximately 24 attendees, depending on the amounts for airfares being requested, but no institution can receive travel awards for more than 2 of their attendees.

Eligibility and conditions

• Applicant must be a faculty or staff member at a Full or Affiliate member institution.
• Applicant’s institution must already be funding travel to the Conference for at least one of their staff or faculty.
• Applications should only be submitted after first seeking support from one’s own institution. The applicant must confirm that local funding options have already been tried.
• Applicant must confirm their willingness to assist with onsite event management (e.g. as a session convener).

Application review criteria

Applications will be reviewed by the voting members of AMICAL’s Coordinating Committee, taking into consideration the conditions above and giving preference according to the following criteria:

• Balance of representation across member institutions, and across faculty, technology, and library/archives roles for each institution. Are you from an institution that has rarely/infrequently benefited from AMICAL programs? Are you in a role that’s underrepresented for your institution in AMICAL’s programs?
• Expected contribution to the Conference program, or to other consortial objectives advanced through members’ participation in the event. How is your work relevant to the event? In what ways will you share and engage with members, or otherwise add value to the event?

How to apply

The application should be prepared and submitted by the person seeking support.

Before submitting an application, do the following:

1. Request local support. Formally request travel support from your own institution, for example through local programs for funding staff or faculty professional development, travel or conference participation.
2. Contact your AMICAL Representative. Your AMICAL Rep needs to know who from your institution is requesting travel support before the request is submitted. They can help with information about the balance of different roles of expected participants from your institution, policies your institution may have about who may apply for AMICAL Conference support, and whether your institution has committed to supporting the travel of at least one colleague. If you are not sure who your institution’s AMICAL Rep is:
   • check the profile page for your institution on the AMICAL website
   • or email contact@amicalnet.org
3. Estimate your airfare. Use the lowest economy-class airfare that is acceptable to you in terms of carrier, itinerary, etc. The more reasonable your request, the more likely we’ll be able to fund it, and fund it in the full amount. Use a major conversion tool like Oanda.com for converting other currency amounts to euros.
4. Prepare a statement of “Financial need”. Draft a brief (200 words max) statement on why you require financial assistance to support your travel, including the status or further information on the request you’ve made for support from your own institution.
5. Prepare statements on “Balance of representation & Expected contributions”. Draft a 1-2 paragraph (200 words max) explanation of how your request fits the “Application review criteria” listed above.

Once you’ve done all of the above, put the above information into the application form and submit this by 19 February.

Hotel support

Applications open 2 March as part of registration

General conditions

To be eligible for AMICAL’s hotel support program, you must:

• be faculty/staff at an AMICAL Full or Affiliate member institution
• register for the conference by the registration deadline
• agree to participate actively in the conference for all days for which you register

AMICAL hotel support can only cover the hotel nights essential to your conference participation. For example, if you are not on a committee with a scheduled meeting on Wednesday, your Tuesday night hotel room cannot be covered by AMICAL.

There are two groups of attendees who can be covered by AMICAL’s hotel support:

Group 1: Members in active conference roles

AMICAL can cover your hotel nights provided that you are BOTH:

• a visiting attendee from a Full or Affiliate member institution, AND
• in at least one of the following “active roles”:
  • event resource coordinator
  • Coordinating Committee member (both elected officers and standing committee chairs)
  • speaker accepted for the program

Room sharing is encouraged, as an effort towards the financial sustainability of our annual conferences, but it is not required for this group.

Note: non-chair committee members are not part of this group.

Group 2: Members willing to share a room

For all other Full/Affiliate members (those not in “active roles”), AMICAL can cover your hotel nights provided that you:

• agree to share a hotel room with another AMICAL member (any category: Full/Affiliate/Network) for all nights for which you’re requesting support

(One exception is allowed for this condition: if you’re a committee member arriving Tuesday to participate in meetings Wednesday, but your roommate is only arriving Wednesday, a single room can be covered just for Tuesday night.)

If you agree to share a room, you’ll have the option of either naming a roommate or letting us pair you with a roommate of the same gender. If you name your roommate, they must name you as well in their hotel reservation request.

How to benefit

If you fulfill the general and group conditions above, you can request hotel support by simply checking the appropriate box on the registration form.

Registration fee waivers

The value of the AMICAL Conference registration fee is €200 This fee covers break catering, the group dinner, the hotel-campus shuttle, and other local organizing costs. Full or partial waivers are available for AMICAL members.

Eligibility and conditions

All AMICAL members are eligible for registration fee waivers as follows:

• Full/Affiliate members: full waiver (no fee)
• Network members: 50% waiver (€100 due with registration)

How to benefit

To benefit from the fee waiver, AMICAL members need only register by the normal registration deadline.