ECSAS 2021: 4th CIRCULAR

Dear Conveners and Presenters,

thank you for your reply to our last circular and the announcement of your preferred participation (online or in person) in the upcoming ECSAS conference. Based on your feedback, we decided that the 26th ECSAS conference in Vienna will be hosted as an online event from 26 -29 July 2021, with the possibility to take part in a few selected hybrid panels and join the conference on site. A list of the respective panels will soon be announced on the website.

In light of continuing travel restrictions, we consider the virtual format the best solution for all conveners and participants to gather and access the event from their countries without constraints and concerns about health issues. But we also want to accommodate the wish of some colleagues to meet in person, and therefore we plan to provide safe conference space, as far as possible under current conditions.

The conference will be mainly organised via Zoom, using the secure licenses of Vienna University and providing also opportunities for informal virtual meetings, including casual breaks and joint side events for entertainment. We will send detailed access instructions and further advice on technical and practical requirements in due course to secure a smooth e-event.

Online participation

An online event of this size involves a great deal of organizational and technical effort, we therefore also have to charge registration fee:

• Regular: € 70 after June 30: € 90
• Student: € 35 after June 30: € 45

Registration for online participation will be open from mid-May onwards.

On-site participation

There is still some uncertainty about the regulatory requirements for on-site scientific events in summer, but we are optimistic that a safe gathering will be possible by taking all necessary precautions (this is likely to include testing, wearing of FFP2 masks, keeping a distance).

Due to the current situation, there will be no social events, except one open-air reception, but we will provide lunch and coffee breaks.

Registration fee:

• Regular: € 160 after June 30: € 190
• Student: € 110 after June 30: € 135

Registration for on-site participation will be open from mid-May onwards.

We regret that this year we cannot provide bursaries for young researchers, but we encourage everybody to take the advantage of joining the conference online

We also regret that we cannot finance cancellation and re-booking fees, in case an on-site participation will not be possible due to Covid-19-pandemic restrictions. Please make sure to book your travel accordingly.

Panel Organisation

In the next few days we will review the panels on our website and remove the abstracts of those colleagues who unfortunately had to cancel their participation. Please contact us if there are any other necessary changes. All panel conveners are requested to submit the proposed programme of their panels - i.e., the proposed sequence of papers - before 30 May 2021 by e-mail to ecsas2021@univie.ac.at, with a clear indication of the time zones of all participants. We will take this into consideration when finalizing the programme in the course of June

Please keep in mind that the 26th ECSAS requires EASAS membership.

We are looking forward to this special and challenging new format of our biannual meeting and we wish you all the best in the meantime: stay safe and healthy!

 

The Conveners and Organising Committee

ECSAS 2021: SPECIAL CIRCULAR

 

Dear Conveners and Presenters,

We have been closely monitoring the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, hoping that it would not affect the ECSAS 2020 in Vienna. But in considering the scale of the outbreak in many countries around the globe and its impact on everyone’s mobility and safety, we came to the decision – after consulting with the Full Council of EASAS - that the best way to ensure general participation and success is to postpone the conference for one year, to next summer 2021. Your health and well-being remains our overriding priority.

The new date set for the conference is 26 – 29 July 2021.

We regret any inconveniences and sincerely hope that you will be able to accommodate this change of schedule and be with us in Vienna next year!

We aim at holding the conference by keeping the accepted panels and papers as they are, but we are of course aware that this will probably not be possible in all cases. We therefore ask the panel conveners to kindly confirm that they are still willing and able to convene their panels as planned, and we similarly request all paper presenters to communicate their intention to participate to their respective panel conveners.

The panel conveners are then requested to please provide us a short note of confirmation and to let us know in case there will be any changes in your panel by 30 September 2020, so that we can start working on re-arrangements of our programme as necessary.

We thank all the conveners who had sent us their recommendations for financial support for young scholars. Unfortunately, as the personal financial situations are likely to become subject to change within the course of a year, we will have to repeat the call for travel bursary applications next year. In addition to that the current situation will possibly make it even more difficult for us to acquire necessary means for financial support, but we will do our best to provide support for travel bursaries next year.

Everybody who has already registered for the conference and paid the conference fee will be contacted in a separate email and reimbursed.

The University of Vienna will cancel all existing hotel bookings done over our website – of course without cancellation fees. Cancellation confirmations will be sent in a separate email.

The ECSAS is a members’ conference and so you need to be a member of the EASAS to participate at the ECSAS in 2021. Especially in these difficult times EASAS relies on loyal supporters of the association and the regular payment of membership-fees. We therefore thank the long-term members for their constancy and encourage the new members to remain committed to EASAS. Your membership fee is an important and crucial contribution to our community and South Asian Studies in Europe.

 

We hope to see you then in summer 2021 in Vienna!

Martin Gaenszle, Birgit Kellner (Conveners)
and the ECSAS2021 Conference Team