Overview

Our financial support program has the general aim of improving the value, reach and impact of the Conference for AMICAL members, by enabling the participation of colleagues who are likely to contribute effectively to the Conference program and to participate actively in it. The program also aims to provide a basic level of support for colleagues who have potential for future contribution to the consortium but have limited resources for professional development.

Most financial support is awarded to members who are playing essential roles in the conference or the consortium, but a limited number of additional members can be supported through our nomination-based awards for new professionals and others likely to benefit from and contribute to the conference (see below).

Three levels of support are available to AMICAL members, depending on their institution’s membership category and their role in relation to the conference and the consortium:

Membership category	Conference role	Registration fees	Hotel	Airfare
Full/Affiliate	Primary speakers Coordinating Committee members Conference Resource Coordinators Program Committee reviewers	Full waiver	Shared room	Economy airfare
Full/Affiliate	Additional speakers AMICAL representatives/proxies Nomination-based support awardees	Full waiver	Shared room
Full/Affiliate/Network	Participants (registered attendees)	Full waiver

How to check if you’re eligible for financial support

With the exception of nomination-based awards, support for all roles listed above will be provided automatically, and you do not need to apply. If you’ve been nominated for support, you’ll be notified as indicated below under “Nomination-based support”.

To verify whether you are eligible for financial support, check the following list, which indicates the roles we are taking into account and what exactly is being covered:
Full/Affiliate AMICAL members with hotel or airfare support

This list will be updated to include nomination-based awards around the time that conference registration opens.

If you believe there is a mistake concerning your eligibility, contact amicalconf@amicalnet.org.

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How each type of support works: registration, hotel and airfare

Registration fee waivers

The AMICAL 2020 registration fee is €230, but this is being covered for all AMICAL member attendees.

The AMICAL Conference registration fee represents the cost, per attendee, of the local production of the Conference: catering of lunches and breaks, group dinners, local transportation (between hotel and campus), printing, attendee materials (bags, badges, etc.) and overhead expenses incurred by the host institution.

Hotel support (shared rooms)

Without at least some support, many AMICAL members would not be able to come to our conference. Sharing rooms allows AMICAL to enable the participation of a larger number of such members, with a more sustainable financial model.

Eligibility

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

• be a staff or faculty member at an AMICAL Full or Affiliate member institution
  • your roommate can be an AMICAL member from any category, Full/Affiliate/Network, even if they are not eligible for hotel support themselves
• be in at least one of the following eligible conference/consortial roles:
  • Speaker (primary or additional) on a proposal accepted for the program
  • Coordinating Committee member
  • Conference Resource Coordinator
  • Program Committee reviewer
  • AMICAL representative/proxy
  • Nomination-based support awardee
• register for the conference by the registration deadline
• agree to participate actively in the conference for all days for which you register
• be willing to share your hotel room with another AMICAL colleague of the same gender, or pay for the difference in price (KWD 15.25/night) for a single room to yourself.
  If you are awarded support but are unable to share a room for some reason, and you are unable to cover the KWD 15.25/night difference for a single room: in exceptional cases we may approve applying the value of your award toward a single room at a less expensive hotel. Such cases require AMICAL’s prior approval, and you would need to pay the hotel up front and later request reimbursement from AMICAL. See Accommodation for suggested hotel alternatives.

Selecting roommates

You’ll have the option of either naming your roommate or letting us pair you with one. If you name your roommate, they must name you as well in their hotel reservation request. Otherwise, we will pair you with another AMICAL member of the same gender and, if possible, from your institution.

Dates covered

AMICAL hotel support can only cover the hotel nights surrounding your event participation (arrival the day before your first day of participation, departure the day after your last day of participation). For example: attendees participating only for the main conference days of January 16 and 17 will be covered to stay the nights of January 15, 16 and 17, with checkout on January 18.

You may book additional hotel nights through the registration form, but you will be billed for those.

Added hotel night for pre-conference workshop attendees

Being accepted for a workshop does not guarantee financial support to attend. Some workshop attendees may already be eligible for the financial support program described on this page, but there is not a separate program for support specifically for workshop participants. Shared-room hotel support to attend the workshop is only provided as an extension to the support already provided to those eligible for our financial support program: if you are already eligible for that support, and you are accepted for a pre-conference workshop, your shared-room hotel coverage will be extended by the extra day necessary to attend the workshop.

Check the dates of your hotel coverage

Before booking your hotel through our registration form, review the list of members receiving financial support to check the exact dates for which you will be covered.

Note that the hotel has a normal check-in time of 14:00. If you need to arrive more than a few hours earlier than that because of the flights you’re able to get, you should check with AMICAL (amicalconf@amicalnet.org) to find out whether you will need to cover the cost of an early check-in.

If your roommate has different arrival/departure dates…

Your hotel stay will be covered for the dates we’ve promised to cover you, even if you have the room to yourself for the nights where your roommate’s stay doesn’t overlap with yours. If you’re attending a Pre-Conference Workshop on January 15 and/or the Members Council meeting on January 18, for example, but your roommate is not participating on those days and staying fewer nights than you, your room can still be covered (without having to share) for the nights of January 14 and/or 18 when your roommate will not be staying at the hotel.

How to claim hotel support

If you fulfill the eligibility conditions above, you need only submit the conference registration form by the normal registration deadline, indicating there your hotel reservation request. No payment on your part is necessary if you are only booking nights within the range of dates covered by AMICAL.

Airfare support

Eligibility and conditions

To benefit from airfare support:

• You must be a staff or faculty member at an AMICAL Full or Affiliate member institution
• Your institution must already be funding airfare to the Conference for at least one staff or faculty member (normally your AMICAL representative).
• You must be in at least one of the following eligible conference/consortial roles:
  • Primary speaker on a proposal accepted for the program
  • Coordinating Committee member
  • Conference Resource Coordinator
  • Program Committee reviewer

How to claim airfare support

Airfare will be covered automatically for attendees in the categories indicated above, up to a limit based on your institution’s location. If you are eligible for this, follow the instructions that will be sent to you shortly by email.

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Nomination-based support for Full/Affiliate members

A limited number of nomination-based awards covering registration fees and a shared hotel room will be made available for individuals unable to benefit from support through one of the roles listed above. Nominations are made by the AMICAL representative.

Limits on nominations per institution

If AMICAL is already covering at least registration and a shared hotel room for…	…then the maximum number of colleagues the representative may nominate is:
1 from your institution	2 max nominations
2 from your institution	1 max nomination
3+ from your institution	no nominations allowed

A list of colleagues from your institution already covered by AMICAL is available at the list of members receiving financial support.

Eligibility requirements

• The nominee must be a staff or faculty member at a Full or Affiliate member institution and with a role or responsibilities (formal or informal) that
  • relate to the core focus areas of our grant from the Mellon Foundation: library/technology leadership, information/digital literacies, or digital liberal arts
  • allow you to engage substantially and meaningfully with the topics of the announced conference program
• The nominee’s AMICAL representative must have confirmed, through our Confirmation of AMICAL Representatives’ attendance and institutional support form, that their institution is covering airfare for at least one colleague from their institution. Note: in that form, the representative may need to indicate the nominee as the person, or one of the persons, covered by their institution, since nomination-based support does not cover airfare.
• The nominee must be willing to share their hotel room with another AMICAL colleague – see details about this above, under “Hotel support (shared rooms)”.

Profiles with higher priority

Since there is a limit on the number of nominations that can be received from each institution, AMICAL representatives should select carefully who they nominate. Although the following are not requirements, AMICAL representatives should give priority to colleagues matching some or all of the following profiles :

• New professionals (entered their profession within the last 5 years)
• Roles/responsibilities not already being supported with AMICAL funding from your institution (e.g. if a faculty member from your institution is already being supported by AMICAL, then a nomination for a library or technology staff member would be preferred, etc.)
• Roles/responsibilities that can benefit from the pre-conference workshop on digital literacies
• Members who have been regularly active in the past year in AMICAL’s online community (AMICAL Connect discussions, webinars, etc.)

Any concrete information about how the nominee fits the above profiles should be listed briefly in the nomination form.

How representatives can nominate a colleague

If an AMICAL representative wishes to nominate a colleague, they should:

• First check Nomination limits by institution to see how many nominations, if any, their institution may submit.
• If eligible to submit a nomination, review carefully the eligibility criteria and priority profiles above before deciding who to nominate.
• Confirm that their institution will be funding airfare to the Conference for at least one staff or faculty member (normally the AMICAL representative).
• Gather any supporting information from the nominee that shows how they fit the priority profiles above.
• Submit a single nomination form (one form should be submitted, whether nominating one or two colleagues):

If a nominee is not under the supervision of the AMICAL representative, the representative should inform the colleague’s supervisor, provost or dean about the nomination and the reasons the person is being nominated.

Review of nominations

AMICAL staff will do a preliminary review of all nominations, sorting them into two categories according to how well they fulfill the criteria above:

• nominations which clearly meet the criteria will be approved directly
• nominations which are flagged to consider for declining will be shared with the Grant Review Committee for a final decision

Notification of awards

Nominees will be notified of whether their award has been approved before the close of conference registration.