Support for researchers in under-resourced languages

Conference support for attending EASIER workshop on under-resourced languages

The conference support application is now closed.
Soon we will notify the results.

Project EASIER

EASIER is a Horizon 2020 co-funded project of a duration of 36 months that aims to design, develop, and validate a complete multilingual machine translation system that will act as a framework for barrier-free communication among deaf and hearing individuals and for a larger variety of specific contexts and languages.

Vision

EASIER addresses the existing challenges by developing an ecosystem which incorporates a robust translation system surrounded by numerous tools and services not only to support equal participation of deaf individuals to the whole range of everyday-life activities within an inclusive community, but also to accelerate the incorporation of less-resourced Sign Languages (SL) into SL technologies and leverage the SL content creation industry.

Pillars

EASIER leverages user feedback in all the phases of the project and by promoting inclusion of deaf people in all the relevant activities as not only EUD is a partner of the project, but also other partners employ deaf personnel to conduct the project work e.g. UHH, DCAL, STXT, INT.

The main scientific and technical pillars of the project are:

• Exploitation of a robust data-driven SL (video) recognition engine to support processing of large quantity of data.
• Utilisation of a signing avatar engine that produces accurate signing, easy to comprehend by the deaf community and that integrates augmented information like affective expressions (e.g. emotions) and coherent prosody.
• Incorporation of state-of-the-art Machine Translation (MT) technology in a wide range of languages and communication scenarios, with the possibility of introducing a post-editing workflow to enable corrections and language variations.

The conference support application is now closed.
Soon we will notify the results.

Workshop Information

Autumn School: Sign language data meets data science – data science meets sign linguistics

The goal of the Autumn School is to generate expertise for under-resourced sign languages to extend the scope of EASIER to more European sign languages. The idea is not only to support people who already work with sign languages and train them in technological approaches, but also to train people who already work with language technologies in the handling of sign languages. Therefore, both groups will have a general input in the beginning on the subject that is new to them.

The subsequent sessions will discuss different topics needed to develop SLMT pipelines, as well as a session where participants can present their own work and exchange in a more flexible setting. Workshop languages are English and International Sign.

Available support

With a total budget of 14,000 EUR, the project EASIER is offering support for up to 20 researchers in the field of Sign Language Linguistics and Data Science (and related) with no other funding availability: the support will be up to 700 EUR for each researcher and aims to partially reimburse travel expenses for attending the workshop on under-resourced languages. The support will be paid as a lump sum; however, it can not exceed the total expenses incurred for attending the workshop.

Eligibility criteria

An application will be considered eligible for the EASIER Conference Support if it complies will ALL the following rules:

• Applicants should be based in one of the EU Member States or H2020 Associated Countries.
  (see Regulation (EU) No 1290/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 laying down the rules for participation and dissemination in “Horizon 2020 – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020)” and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1906/2006Text with EEA relevance (europa.eu) and List of Associated Countries: h2020-hi-list-ac_en.pdf (europa.eu).
• The Applicant is a researcher from a University, University of Applied Science, Research Centre, Company or association actively involved in the field of Sign Language resource development (this includes deaf associations working on dictionaries, to name just one example).
• Researchers participating in ongoing EC funded research projects on Automatic Sign Language Recognition i.e. EASIER and SignON are excluded. Applicants cannot be employed by any of the consortium partners (legal entities) of both EASIER and SignON.
• Applications need to be submitted before the designated deadline. Late applications will not be admitted.
• The application is submitted by a single party.
• Applications need to be submitted by downloading the Application form available on the EASIER project website, providing all the required information and documentation, and sending it to the following email address: info@project-easier.eu. Applications submitted by any other means will not be evaluated.
• Applications need to be submitted in English or International Sign.

Preference will be given to:

1. PhD students or Early Career Investigators (ECI). Early Career Investigator (ECI) is an individual who is within a time span of up to 8 years from the date they obtained their PhD/doctorate (full-time equivalent);
2. the Applicant’s primary affiliation in an institution located in a Widening Eligible Country (WEC). The WEC are as follows:
   • Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia; Outermost Regions: La Réunion, Mayotte, Canarias, Açores, Madeira, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane.
   • Associated Countries: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.

People not eligible for receiving the conference support are of course welcome to participate in the event at their own expense.

Submission

The applicant should submit the application to receive the conference support by downloading the required form from the EASIER project website: www.project-easier.eu and sending it by email to the following email address: info@project-easier.eu.  The application can be also sent in International Sign with the relevant information included. The application requires the following relevant information:

• Name, Surname, Affiliation, Email, Country
• Updated CV with picture
• A motivation statement (min 1000, max 5000 characters)
• One of the following:
  • Link to one recent paper on sign language data collected by a group the applicant is affiliated with
  • A report on the sign language data being collected
  • A proof of funding for a sign language data collection project to start soon
  • A link to one recent publication on sign language recognition, sign language translation or related topics
• Signed Declaration of Honour on exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interest

All fields should be filled with no exceptions.

The conference support application HAS BEEN CLOSED.

Evaluation and award modalities

The eligibility criteria are verified by the Technical Board of the project and it will provide the final ranking of the applicants based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of the CV: up to 3 points
• Motivation: up to 5 points
• Relevant Publication/Report/Proof of funding: up to 3 points
• PhD students or Early Career Investigator (ECI): up to 2 points
• Applicant’s primary affiliation in an institution located in an WEC: up to 2 points

Maximum score: 15 points.

A ranking in decreasing score order will be provided. Applications with the higher scores will be selected for funding up to the consumption of the available funding: 14.000 EUR (700 EUR for each of the 20 applicants).

Once the final ranking is finalised, successful applicants will be notified about the result by email.

Payment

Once selected, the Applicant should:

• Sign a non-negotiable contract with the project Coordinator Martel G.m.b.H and certify no double funding or other sources are covering the same expenses supported by the Grant.
• Must attend the workshop and have the participation registered with a signature among the list of workshop participants and certified by the workshop organiser.

If the selected participant cannot attend the workshop before it starts, the Coordinator reserves the right to offer the conference support to another applicant. If the selected participant does not participate in the workshop, the support will not be distributed.

In order to receive the support, the participant should:

• Request the conference support from the Coordinator by email. Prior to proceeding with the payment, the Coordinator will confirm the participant’s participation in cooperation with the workshop organiser;
• Submit to the Coordinator up to one page report on the workshop participation highlighting the key takeaways within 2 weeks from the completion date of the workshop.
• A summary of the expenses incurred to attend the workshop (e.g. hotel, aeroplane/train tickets, etc) with proof-of-expenses (digital copy) and a statement confirming the conference support did not exceed the total expenses incurred for attending the workshop.