Financial matters ESERA Board and LOC

This page outlines the financial relationship between ESERA and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of ESERA Conferences and ESERA Summer Schools.

1. Collaboration and Shared Responsibility – the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the ESERA Conference and ESERA Summer School work in collaboration with the ESERA Board to develop and agree on budgets for these events. An important part of the budget are the conference or summer school registration fees, which are set at an appropriate level to encourage broad participation of science education researchers. The income generated by conference fees and local sponsoring is meant to roughly balance the expenses of organizing the event. The Conference Financial Guidelines, maintained by the treasurer, provide additional information on commitments. The main principle is that the Board and the LOC share the responsibility of organizing a successful event that provides good value for all participants from a range of countries (1).

2. Planning budget – ESERA offers the LOC a planning budget of €1,000 to be retransferred to ESERA after the conference or summer school. The LOC can, of course, decide not to make use of this offer.

3. Additional request for financial support – The ESERA Executive Board will decide on granting additional requests for financial support made by the LOC. Amounts approved by the ESERA Board will be transferred to the LOC before the event on request only. A request should be addressed by letter or email to the ESERA treasurer (for name and address, see the ESERA website), stating the necessary details.

4. Transfers to ESERA – Amounts that need to be transferred to ESERA, such as membership fees or in the event of a surplus, are expected to be transferred by the LOC within three months of the completion of the event. The transfer process is agreed in advance with the ESERA Treasurer (2).

5. Membership information – If necessary, details about ESERA membership of individuals will be made available to the LOC on request. It is the responsibility of the LOC to safeguard that these details are not used for any other purpose than the organization of the event and that any use does not violate the terms under which members provided this information.

6. Finalised account – After the conference or summer school the LOC provides the ESERA Board with a statement of accounts for the whole event.

Guidelines for the ESERA Summerschool

7. The ESERA Board offers the LOC of an ESERA Summer School a budget of maximum € 15,000, for financial support for covering costs directly related to the event itself, including the fee and stay of staff acting as mentors. The LOC is encouraged to seek additional sponsorship for financial support of Summer School participants. The travel expenses of the participants acting as mentors are refunded 100% by the ESERA association directly and fall outside the above mentioned budget.

8. Summerschool participation and fees – ESERA’s policy is that every participant to the summerschool is active member in the year that the event is organized. The ESERA membership fees are collected by the ESERA association and fall outside the summerschool budget. The LOC and ESERA Board together determine appropriate registration fees for summerschools on the basis of agreed upon budgets.

Guidelines for the ESERA Conference

9. Fellowships budget – The ESERA Conference offers financial support to researchers from countries where support for attending scientific conferences is not adequate. Specific eligibility criteria apply for these fellowships, which are announced openly on the conference website. The total budget for ESERA Conference Fellowships is normally around €25,000 and is covered as part of the Conference Budget. After the conference, the LOC reports separately on the Fellowships support along with all the necessary personal information, including name and email of the corresponding awardees.

10. Conference participation and fees – ESERA’s policy is that Active members and Continuous Members, i.e. members being active member both in the year of the conference and preceding year, receive discount on the conference fee as indicated in the Table below. €xxx stands for early bird fee for the member category, whereas €yyy stands for the late registration fee for the member category. As for the the PhD Student member category, €vvv stands for the early bird fee and €www for the late registration fee. In all cases, the ESERA membership fees fall outside the conference budget. The LOC and ESERA Board together determine appropriate registration fees for conferences on the basis of agreed upon budgets.