EuroCHRIE Board Launches New Pilot Initiative

Small Group Meetings (SGM) aim to bring together experts in a specific topical area of hospitality research or practice in -typically 2-day- concentrated meetings with a limited number of participants (max. 30 pax). These SGM’s should explicitly target an international group of delegates and have the aim to stimulate contact between EuroCHRIE members and the development of cross-national networks.

The Euro federation has decided to develop the SGM format for this federation solely at this point, which creates the opportunity for all our members across the EMEA regions to interact and develop with the federation on more than a yearly major conference basis. This format decision is a strategic decision for the federation, to increase the opportunity for all members to interact on a more specialist basis at a potentially lower conference budget.

As such, the SGM initiative is solely run by the EuroCHRIE federation and at this stage only a pilot whereby we will co-fund 3 such meetings over the course of the next 1,5 years. Although all members are invited to come forward with a proposal, we particularly would like to encourage members from Africa and Eastern Europe, who may have limited budget for travel, to come forward with proposals.

Funding for Small Group Meetings (SGM)

The EuroCHRIE Board is seeking proposals for intensive, short conferences with an international range of delegates in which members of EuroCHRIE play an active part. Consistent with the aim of the meeting, acceptance of proposals is based on meeting the following conditions:

• Multiple day meeting focused on a specific and important theme in Hospitality or for the EuroCHRIE federation;
• Maximum of 30 participants, so that all participants can actively participate and present;
• At least 25% of the participants are EuroCHRIE members;
• Participants are from at least four different EMEA countries; Participation from other countries outside EMEA is welcomed.
• Lowest possible costs to EuroCHRIE members;
• Proposals for Small Group Meetings can be submitted by EuroCHRIE members or connected entities;
• The responsibility for the organization lies with the local organizers, not with EuroCHRIE
• Participation in the meeting is in principle open to all EuroCHRIE members (with the restriction of the maximum number of participants being 30): The organizers will need to provide an open call for papers that is announced (via the EuroCHRIE website); and the meeting will be announced as “EuroCHRIE Small Group Meeting on …”;
• Even though the actual participation in the small group meeting is restricted to 30 people, the meeting should yield a product available free of charge to the EuroCHRIE members. To this end, the organizers are expected to submit the results to Open Access Journals and Research Gate in collaboration with the EuroCHRIE Director of Research as well as publishing on the EuroCHRIE website.
• EuroCHRIE offers a start-up budget up to 2,500 euro per meeting. This budget is intended as a contribution to organisation costs. It is not meant to cover all costs – organisers are expected to find/provide additional funding or sponsorship. Moreover, it is explicitly meant for not-for-profit meetings only – funding is meant to keep costs to participating EuroCHRIE members at a minimum (participation fees are always subject to EuroCHRIE Board approval and in any situation cannot exceed the maximum of 100€ regular fee/50€ PhD student fee). Please note that the SGM organisers will have to secure advance funding from their organizations, as the EuroCHRIE funding will be provided upon delivering an activity report and final budgets and receipts.

EuroCHRIE funding is contingent on: (a) submission of a 3-4-page Executive Summary for publication on the EuroCHRIE website; (b) submission of a short report about the event and the final account that should be delivered shortly after the event, in the maximum period of 6 months. The documents template will be provided at the time of the SGM acceptance but will also become available on the EuroCHRIE Website. Moreover, in order to receive funding, a copy of original invoices are required corresponding to the budget set in the proposal.

EuroCHRIE members interested in organising a SGM in 2020 or early 2021 are invited to submit a proposal to the EuroCHRIE Board by emailing the Director of Research, Jean-Pierre van der Rest – j.i.van.der.rest@law.leidenuniv.nl before the end of November 2019. The proposal should follow the proposal template that will become available on the EuroCHRIE website (before that time you can also approach the Director of Research directly and he can provide it. The proposal should contain the following:

• Title and description of the SGM, including a rationale for its importance in EuroCHRIE;
• Dates and place of the meeting;
• Organizing committee and lead responsible;
• Budget and expected participant fees, including plans to secure additional funding;
• Plan for the distribution of the call for papers;
• Viability Assessment.

The following criteria will be used for selecting the successful SGM proposals:

1. Theme relevance and novelty
2. Theme timeliness and interest, and differentiation from other SGM’s
3. Justification for a wide scope of interests bearing in mind the diversity of EuroCHRIE members – hereby countries, academic spectrum and practitioner topics

Information about the previous SGM themes will become available on our website as they run. Priority for acceptance will be given to themes and topics which have not been supported recently in the SGM programme.

With regards to the dates of the proposed SGM, applicants should also mention if they have some date flexibility or not. The EuroCHRIE Board might ask for the possibility to host the SGM at an alternative time in order to avoid that two potential SGMs are held in the same period, or when attendance may conflict with attendance of the annual conference of the three CHRIE meetings.

As the EuroCHRIE board, we are excited to be able to offer you this new format and to pilot it for the next 1,5 years, and we hope that you are too! Please let us know if you have any additional queries, by emailing the Director of Research at  j.i.van.der.rest@law.leidenuniv.nl