Most important decisions taken by the Board of ESSE during its meeting in Galway, Ireland, 21-22 August 2016
- The Board of ESSE unanimously re-elected the current ESSE Secretary, Professor Smiljana Komar, and the current ESSE Treasurer, Professor Alberto Lázaro, for another term of three years.
- The Board of ESSE unanimously accepted a new member association. This is the Society for the Study of English in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- The Board of ESSE unanimously elected a new co-editor of the European Journal of English Studies. This is Professor Isabel Carrera Suárez from University of Oviedo, Spain, who is going to replace the current co-editor, Professor Stephanos Stephanides, as of 1 January 2017.
- The Board of ESSE agreed to the themes of the forthcoming volumes of the ESSE Messenger. The topic of the winter volume will be “Shakespeare lives”, whereas the summer volume of 2017 will be dedicated to varieties of English in Europe.
- 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:
- increase the amount of money available for the Bursaries (from €15,000 to €19,000),
- rename the PhD Sessions into Doctoral Symposium and 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 Thessaloniki, Greece, from 28 to 29 August 2017,
- publish a selection of papers by PhD students in The ESSE Messenger,
- publish a selection of Bursary reports in The ESSE Messenger,
- continue with the Book grants and to increase the money from €1,500 to €2,000,
- launch and sponsor a 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. The main purpose of this grant is to encourage prospective co-researchers from different national associations to plan a bid for a larger award from alternative funding sources; it also aims to resource the time and space to work out practical and intellectual details of the proposed project.
- The Board of ESSE appointed the Academic Programme Committee for the ESSE-14 conference in 2018 in Brno, the Czech Republic. The committee consists of three representatives from CZASE, the host association, and three members of the ESSE Board.
- The Board of ESSE accepted the bid of Lyon, France, as the venue of ESSE–15 conference in 2020.
- The Board of ESSE appointed a Bursary Committee for 2017. The deadline for the submission of applications is 1 March 2017.