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CLARIN Preparatory Phase 2008–2010
Call for Pre-proposals for Collaborating with Humanities and Social Science Projects

Pre-Proposal Closing Date: February 15, 2009


Pre-proposals are invited for Humanities research projects that would benefit from access to language resources and technology (LRT). Research institutions or consortia with funding but little or no access to LRT or related expertise are targeted in this call.

Context

The CLARIN project (http://www.clarin.eu) is a large-scale pan-European collaborative effort to create, coordinate and make language resources and technology available and readily useable. CLARIN will ultimately offer scholars the tools to access and process language data, addressing one or more of the multiple roles language plays (i.e. as carrier of cultural content and knowledge, instrument of communication, component of identity and object of study) in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).
One of the objectives in the CLARIN project's current preparatory phase is an in-depth assessment of the technological, methodological, and organizational requirements involved in serving research communities. While language resources and technology (LRT) have great potential in facilitating research in many areas, the Humanities in particular are still an area where few communities have large-scale experience in exploiting the benefits. In the light of this situation, it is essential for the CLARIN project to establish an active interaction with HSS research communities at large through crucial direct experience about user needs, objectives, data and methods used in their research.
The chosen means for gaining this experience is through actual collaboration with HSS colleagues in some well chosen projects, the initiative for which must primarily come from HSS researchers themselves. CLARIN is committed to the idea of collaboration with HSS projects on a suitable scale as the best means of identifying needs and removing any potential obstacles from the way of future synergies between the two fields.

Targeted applicants

The current call is targeted at research institutions or consortia with a high research capability, but who need to complement their own expertise and resources with specific LRT components in order to achieve an advance beyond the established state-of-the-art. CLARIN participation is intended to strengthen an already good research plan by providing LRT support. Projects may have theoretical or applied relevance. Projects should not involve core LRT development, but should use LRT to enhance HSS research questions.

Example 1: A literature project wants to study censorship in translation. It has access to uncensored and censored translations of novels. To support the analysis, the project may benefit from producing a searchable parallel corpus where different versions of each sentence are aligned. CLARIN participation could involve access to a corpus alignment tool and transfer of skills in using the tool.

Example 2: A history project wanting to study cultural attitudes in Medieval Northern Europe wants to search through runic inscriptions. CLARIN participation might assist in locating existing digitized corpora of runes in different countries and providing assistance for converting the different materials to a common encoding.

CLARIN consultancy and technical support will be provided at various stages of the execution of the accepted projects. Especially the following target groups are addressed:
1.Groups of individual researchers with basic institutional funding
2.Early stage researchers in funded PhD positions, with their supervisors
3.Research groups or consortia in an advanced pre-proposal stage with prospects of external funding
4.Research groups or consortia that have secured external funding.
CLARIN intends to select between 5 and 10 projects in a range of different Humanities and Social Sciences fields.

Support provided
 

Although CLARIN does not have the budget to directly finance Humanities projects, it will provide consultancy and technical support to selected projects that are otherwise financed but lack the necessary resources and expertise to enhance their activities with LRT. The contribution of CLARIN to selected projects will therefore consist of providing guidance and access to LRT. This will involve advice on standards and the technologies to adopt for the particular objectives of the selected projects. CLARIN technical support and consultancy will be given through various schemes, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Access to digital language resources such as archives, corpora, wordnets, lexicons, termbases, etc.
• Access to tools for managing and exploring corpora and other language resources; tools for making word lists and extracting multi-word units, terms, names; tools that convert spoken data to written text and vice versa, etc.
• Assistance to convert legacy formats into formats that can be handled seamlessly.
• Assistance in creating a methodologically sound workflow with data, tools and modeling approaches for innovative research and development.
• Site visits by experts acting as consultants on methodology and the use of resources and tools.
• Hands-on training in the use of specific tools and methods.
• Redefining or extending research plans so as to include LRT aspects where appropriate.
• Dissemination of the results and outcomes from the CLARIN cooperation in the selected projects, using various CLARIN dissemination chanels.
• The extent of CLARIN collaboration and technical support will be contractually defined.

Example 1: A project unable to acquire and utilize a text alignment tool may be given access to relevant software and may receive expert advice and training regarding its effective use from a CLARIN partner institution.
Example 2: For a project in need of a database of runic inscriptions, a CLARIN partner institution might negotiate access to existing databases and, if necessary, assist in converting them to a common encoding standard to make them searchable.
 

Eligibility

Applicants must be organizations or consortia including at least one organization established in a Member State (MS) or Associated Country (AC) with respect to the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme. Applicants may be from all sectors, including universities and colleges, research institutes, industry, international European interest organisations, civil society organisations, and any other legal entities. They must demonstrate their capacity towards performing the proposed research.
The project objectives and theme should be within one or more HSS subject areas, including, but not limited to, language, literature, history, philosophy, history of art, archeology, culture, religion, anthropology, psychology, pedagogy and sociology. The emphasis will not be on developing LRT in itself, but to explore its usefulness for central HSS research.
The period for direct CLARIN cooperation should generally not extend after December 31, 2010, although projects themselves may extend beyond that time.
Research activities should primarily consist of research or technological development within HSS, addressing new and pertinent research questions, and may also include demonstration activities, designed to prove the viability of new approaches or their exploitation. The research plan should have reached some maturity and should profit from one component involving a specifically described need for LRT. It is important to justify how the proposed LRT support fits in the overall objectives and methodology of the project.
Projects must be financially viable, either enjoying financial support or clearly demonstrate potential to raise funding for the project.
CLARIN will normally not pay for software and data licences owned by third parties, but may contribute with LRT that is owned by CLARIN partners.
Example 1: A PhD student with a stipend and her supervisor, both at the University of Malta, need LRT support to enlarge its capabilities of handling enough data to get statistically significant results. The project is relevant to CLARIN. Furthermore, CLARIN partners can provide the necessary tools and data.  This project is likely to be eligible.
Example 2: A research consortium is led by a Romanian university, with a Dutch research institute and a Turkish company as project partners. The project's bid for support from the National University Research Council in Romania has been successful. The project is relevant and needs additional LRT support which CLARIN can provide. This project is likely to be eligible.

Selection procedure

Proposals will be selected in a fast two-step procedure. In the optional first step, pre-proposals are invited that contain project sketches. During this step, CLARIN will perform an elegibility check and will provide feedback to proposers, taking into account the gist of the project, but will not reject proposals.
In the second step, full proposals will be invited. Having submitted a pre-proposal is no prerequisite for submitting a full proposal. Full proposals will be reviewed non-anonymously by three experts including the national representative for the proposal coordinator's country. Proposals will be judged according to the following criteria:
1.Exemplary LRT needs and use of LRT towards research goals.
2.Capacity of CLARIN to provide the needed LRT and expertise.
3.Relevance of the proposed projects for testing the CLARIN infrastructure.
4.Adherence to CLARIN standards and best practice.
5.Capability to demonstrate the potential of the CLARIN infrastructure to HSS projects.
6.Multilinguality or cross-boundary dimension (projects crossing language and/or national boundaries are particularly welcome but monolingual projects and projects with national relevance will also be encouraged).
7.National and European needs and priorities (to the extent these are formulated).
Only a limited number of projects will be able to receive support, and a good spread of the selected projects across subject areas will be a goal. The national representatives for CLARIN will provide advice on how well the proposals fit in national priorities. The final decision on selection will be taken by the CLARIN Executive Board on the basis of the expert reviews. Decisions about each individual proposal will be documented and a detailed feedback will be sent to its proposers.

Contract, responsibilities and funding scheme

A contract will be drafted that defines the support provided. CLARIN will not assume any other responsibility for projects other than for the tasks agreed on in the contract. CLARIN will have a consultancy role, only for the parts and issues within its scope and competency. CLARIN will not play any part in steering the project, but will assume an advisory role. CLARIN will not be represented on a project's steering committee, but may assume an advisory role only for parts and issues within its competency. The project management shall not make any decisions against the interests of the CLARIN project or of those CLARIN partners involved in providing support. Projects normally retain the full right of use and dissemination of any project results ("foreground"). CLARIN will fund only its own activities in the project and will not provide any other financial support to the project. Proposed projects should aim at disseminating LRT results through CLARIN.

Pre-proposal submission procedure

The pre-proposal should be submitted in two separate email copies addressed to Tamás Váradi [varadi@nytud.hu], coordinator of WP3 and Koenraad de Smedt [clarin@uib.no], chair of Humanities Project Selection Committee,  as a single PDF file with the following headings:
 1 Proposal acronym
 2 Proposal title
 3 Duration in months and proposed start date
 4 Coordinator: legal organization, organization type, legal address, department or unit, contact person, telephone and email.
 5 List of partners: each with legal organization, organization type, legal address, department or unit, contact person, telephone and email.
 6 Financing plan (budget and funding sources)
 7 List of languages covered
 8 Brief description of work, including main objectives, methods and data, plan of activities, and need for CLARIN LRT support (max. 4 pages)
 9 Brief description of how the project addresses national and/or European priorities (max 1/2 page)
 10 References (bibliographical, websites)
Applications from PhD students should include their supervisors as partners. The pre-proposal should preferably not have appendices, but references may include web links which provide background information which, however, should not be essential to the evaluation of the proposal.

Important dates
 

February 15, 2009 (noon UT): deadline for pre-proposal submission
March 7, 2009: feedback is provided to proposers
April 1, 2009 (noon UT): deadline for full proposal submission
April 21, 2009: final decision

Further information and assistance on the application

Interested parties are advised to contact one of the following persons:
Koenraad De Smedt [clarin at uib.no]
Eva Hajičova [hajicova at ufal.mff.cuni.cz]
Carla Parra [carla.parra at upf.edu]
Jean-Marie Pierrel [jean-marie.pierrel at atilf.fr]
Valeria Quochi [valeria.quochi at ilc.cnr.it]
Paul Rayson [rayson at exchange.lancs.ac.uk]
Marco Tadić [marko.tadic at ffzg.hr]
Tamás Váradi [varadi at nytud.hu]
Martin Wynne [martin.wynne at oucs.ox.ac.uk]
 

Alternatively, or in addition, the national representatives for CLARIN (http://www.clarin.eu/national_contact_points) may be contacted for further information.

Attachments: 

call7.pdf