I’d like to recommend that part of the process review for providing travel grant funding includes consideration of the application process timing for CEA-run or supported events. In my experience, key dates in the process (open, consideration/decision, notification of acceptance, notification of travel grant funding) happen much closer to the date of the event than other academic or trade conferences.
For example, in 2022, several Australian EAs I know applied ~90 days in advance of EAG London or EAG SF, but were accepted only around 30-40 days before the event.
A slow application process creates several issues for international attendees:
Notice is needed for employment leave. Prospective attendees who are employed usually need to submit an application for leave with 1+ months notice, especially for a trip of ~1 week or longer needed for international travel. Shorter notice can create conflict or ill-feeling between the employee and employer.
Flight prices increase as the travel date approaches. An Australian report recommended booking international flights 6 months ahead of the date of travel. A Google report recommended booking international travel (US<>Europe) at least 50-180 days [~2-6 months] ahead of the date of travel. By 30 days out—when my colleagues received notice of acceptance—flights were much more expensive, and some of the most convenient travel dates were unavailable.
Fit with other commitments and needs. For parents, people with caring responsibilities, or people with disabilities, a slow process can lead to stress and conflict about whether to accept the invitation and how to make arrangements to support attendance at short notice.
Visa issues. Visa applications can take weeks or months to approve by the destination country.
Providing travel grant funding can help to “smooth over” some of these issues, e.g., by subsidising the increase in flight costs, offsetting the (literal or emotional) costs of navigating / negotiating commitments and needs. It is not a panacea—the application process itself also needs to be reviewed to reduce these issues. If the travel grant funding is significantly reduced but no change is made to the application process, there may be an unintended consequence of fewer international attendees who would otherwise be a good fit for events.
I support a review of travel grant funding processes. I ask that you also consider the application process (especially timing) and its relationship with the travel grant funding process, to improve the experience for international attendees so that the flagship events of EA Global can continue to live up to their name.
Right now flights from London to San Francisco cost £400-£500, compared to what they may be shorter notice (approx £1500+ in some cases). The difference is 2-4x , and you could buy flights + accommodation for a week now (around 2 months out) for less than just the flights may be around 2 weeks out (which is when the EA Global website says you would hear by). This is a significant difference when acting under the assumption of not being able to receive travel grant funding. I can see this in many cases being the difference between ‘I can afford to go’ and ‘I cannot + will need the travel funding’, particularly as hotels are also likely to get sold out and the remaining ones potentially being more expensive or further away.
For EAGs, there was the policy of if you were accepted into one in a year, you would be accepted into all of them. If this will continue being the same, it feels like perhaps there should be an application round early, so people could know that they would get into future conferences (if they wanted to) and book flights/accommodation in advance accordingly.
(For EAGxs the apply to one get into everything policy did not exist, but those are meant to be regional so the travel costs are significantly less anyway, at least within Europe)
Thanks for your detailed comment! I work on the events team so I can add some info. Yep, we broadly agree here. We’re keen to open and review applications earlier than we have been doing, for many of the reasons you mention. It’s something we’ve been actively working on for a while, but unfortunately we have been dealing with a variety of bottlenecks on this front. We have designed a new application system for EAG 2023, which will open very soon. It’s an application for all of the EAGs in 2023, rather than on a conference by conference basis. So, once people are accepted, they can then register (and plan/book travel for) any of the announced EAGs in 2023.
EAGx admissions are done by their respective organising teams, as they are community hosted. CEA just supports them, so we can’t directly control their admissions turnaround, but we are making systems improvements that the EAGx teams can benefit from too. This will hopefully help somewhat!
Thanks for the update.
I’d like to recommend that part of the process review for providing travel grant funding includes consideration of the application process timing for CEA-run or supported events. In my experience, key dates in the process (open, consideration/decision, notification of acceptance, notification of travel grant funding) happen much closer to the date of the event than other academic or trade conferences.
For example, in 2022, several Australian EAs I know applied ~90 days in advance of EAG London or EAG SF, but were accepted only around 30-40 days before the event.
A slow application process creates several issues for international attendees:
Notice is needed for employment leave. Prospective attendees who are employed usually need to submit an application for leave with 1+ months notice, especially for a trip of ~1 week or longer needed for international travel. Shorter notice can create conflict or ill-feeling between the employee and employer.
Flight prices increase as the travel date approaches. An Australian report recommended booking international flights 6 months ahead of the date of travel. A Google report recommended booking international travel (US<>Europe) at least 50-180 days [~2-6 months] ahead of the date of travel. By 30 days out—when my colleagues received notice of acceptance—flights were much more expensive, and some of the most convenient travel dates were unavailable.
Fit with other commitments and needs. For parents, people with caring responsibilities, or people with disabilities, a slow process can lead to stress and conflict about whether to accept the invitation and how to make arrangements to support attendance at short notice.
Visa issues. Visa applications can take weeks or months to approve by the destination country.
Providing travel grant funding can help to “smooth over” some of these issues, e.g., by subsidising the increase in flight costs, offsetting the (literal or emotional) costs of navigating / negotiating commitments and needs. It is not a panacea—the application process itself also needs to be reviewed to reduce these issues. If the travel grant funding is significantly reduced but no change is made to the application process, there may be an unintended consequence of fewer international attendees who would otherwise be a good fit for events.
I support a review of travel grant funding processes. I ask that you also consider the application process (especially timing) and its relationship with the travel grant funding process, to improve the experience for international attendees so that the flagship events of EA Global can continue to live up to their name.
Based on your comment I looked this up:
Right now flights from London to San Francisco cost £400-£500, compared to what they may be shorter notice (approx £1500+ in some cases). The difference is 2-4x , and you could buy flights + accommodation for a week now (around 2 months out) for less than just the flights may be around 2 weeks out (which is when the EA Global website says you would hear by). This is a significant difference when acting under the assumption of not being able to receive travel grant funding. I can see this in many cases being the difference between ‘I can afford to go’ and ‘I cannot + will need the travel funding’, particularly as hotels are also likely to get sold out and the remaining ones potentially being more expensive or further away.
For EAGs, there was the policy of if you were accepted into one in a year, you would be accepted into all of them. If this will continue being the same, it feels like perhaps there should be an application round early, so people could know that they would get into future conferences (if they wanted to) and book flights/accommodation in advance accordingly.
(For EAGxs the apply to one get into everything policy did not exist, but those are meant to be regional so the travel costs are significantly less anyway, at least within Europe)
Thanks for your detailed comment! I work on the events team so I can add some info.
Yep, we broadly agree here. We’re keen to open and review applications earlier than we have been doing, for many of the reasons you mention. It’s something we’ve been actively working on for a while, but unfortunately we have been dealing with a variety of bottlenecks on this front. We have designed a new application system for EAG 2023, which will open very soon. It’s an application for all of the EAGs in 2023, rather than on a conference by conference basis. So, once people are accepted, they can then register (and plan/book travel for) any of the announced EAGs in 2023.
EAGx admissions are done by their respective organising teams, as they are community hosted. CEA just supports them, so we can’t directly control their admissions turnaround, but we are making systems improvements that the EAGx teams can benefit from too. This will hopefully help somewhat!