Most important decisions taken by the Board (Wroclaw, Poland, 29 – 30 August 2019)

  1.  The Board of ESSE elected the new ESSE Secretary, Professor Biljana Mišić Ilić, from Serbia, and a new ESSE Treasurer, Professor Gašper Ilc, from Slovenia. Their term of office will begin on 1 January 2020.
  2. The Board of ESSE unanimously agreed on a reduction of annual fees from €9.00 to €7.00. This will be in effect for the following three years. In 2023 the fees will automatically return to €9.00 unless the Board of ESSE decides otherwise. The concessionary fees will match this reduction although not below 50% of the full fee.
  3. The Board of ESSE unanimously agreed to have only one date for membership updates per calendar year. Fees will be collected according to the membership lists sent to ESSE Treasurer by 15 November of the current year. Members whose names are included in these lists will be able to claim ESSE privileges the following year, such as ESSE Bursaries, ESSE Book grants, ESSE Book awards, conference fee waivers and the Collaborative Project Workshop Schemes. The only exception will be the ESSE Doctoral Symposium, whose requirements for both, taking part and applying for a grant remain unchanged.
  4. The Board of ESSE unanimously accepted a new member association. This is the Montenegrin Society for the Study of English (MONTESSE).
  5. The Board of ESSE agreed to the theme of the forthcoming winter volume (December 2019) of The ESSE Messenger. The topic will be “The book-to-film debate in the age of visual commodities”. The planned theme for the summer volume (July 2020) is “Language, discourse and gender identity”.
  6. The Board of ESSE appointed the evaluation committees for the ESSE Book Awards in 2020.
  7. The Board of ESSE accepted the proposed parallel lectures, seminars and round tables for ESSE-15 conference in Lyon in 2020. The call for papers will soon be published on the ESSE website.
  8. 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 2020. The deadline for the submission of applications is 1 March 2020;
  • continue with the Book grants. The deadline for the submission of applications is 1 May 2020;
  • continue with the Doctoral Symposium in conference and non-conference years, as well as 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 Lyon, France, during ESSE-15 conference. The announcement will soon be published on the ESSE website.
  • continue the Collaborative Project Workshop Scheme, whose purpose is to support a preliminary meeting of European researchers working towards a collaborative research project in the field of English Studies.