Most important decisions taken by the Board of ESSE during its meeting in Brno, Czech Republic, 28 August – 29 August 2018
1. The Board of ESSE elected the new ESSE President, Professor Andreas Jucker, Switzerland. His term of office will begin on 1 January 2019.
2. The Board of ESSE re-elected the Editor of The ESSE Messenger, Professor Adrian Radu, for another term of three years.
3. The Board of ESSE appointed a nominations committee for the election of the ESSE Secretary and the ESSE Treasurer. The term of office for both posts will begin on 1 January 2020. The deadline for the submission of applications is 30. April 2019.
4. The Board of ESSE unanimously accepted a new member association. This is the Norwegian Society for the Study of English (NORSES).
5. The Board of ESSE agreed to the themes of the forthcoming winter volume (December 2018) of The ESSE Messenger. The topic will be “Language Contact Phenomena”.
6. The Board of ESSE strongly reaffirmed its commitment to promote research and support activities destined to help young and established researchers. The Board decided to:
- continue with the Bursaries, and appointed a Bursary committee for 2019. The deadline for the submission of applications is 1 March 2019,
- continue with the Book grants. The deadline for the submission of applications is 1 May 2019.
- continue with the Doctoral Symposium in non-conference years and to offer funding of up to €5,000 to help eligible doctoral students in need of support to participate in the Doctoral Symposium that will be held in Wroclaw, Poland, from 27 to 28 August 2019,
- publish once a year a supplementary issue of The ESSE Messenger (in summer) containing the articles of the participants of the ESSE Doctoral Symposium related to their PhD theses, with the agreement and assessment of quality of their PhD supervisor,
- continue the Collaborative Project Workshop, whose purpose is to support a preliminary meeting of European researchers working towards a collaborative research project in the field of English Studies, and to increase the amount of money available for it (from €4,000 to €8,000).
7. The Board of ESSE agreed to the proposal of the ESSE Executive to provide financial help for travel and/or accommodation up to €250 in order to be able to attend the annual ESSE Board meeting. The deadline for the submission of applications is 31 March of the relevant year.
8. The Board of ESSE appointed the Academic Programme Committee for the ESSE-15 conference in 2020 in Lyon, France. The Committee consists of four representatives from SAES, the host association, and four members of the ESSE Board.
9. The Board of ESSE accepted the bid of Mainz, Germany, as the venue of ESSE–16 conference in 2022.
10. Not having had any contact with the Latvian association for the last two years, the Board of ESSE decided to expel the Latvian association from the European Society for the Study of English.
11. The Board of ESSE was informed about the draft decree of the Hungarian government which proposes to ban MA programs in gender studies for future years in Hungary. The Board agreed to send a petition signed by the ESSE President to the Hungarian State Secretary of Education, Dr József Bódis, urging him to reconsider and withdraw this misguided proposal.