Financial relationship ESERA-LOC

Introduction
This document outlines the financial relationship between ESERA and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of ESERA Conferences and ESERA Summer Schools.

1. Financial independence – the LocalOrganising Committee (LOC) of the ESERA Conference and ESERA Summer School is financially independent from ESERA, and is therefore free to set the conference or summer school fees at the appropriate level. It should be kept in mind, however, that the income generated by conference fees and local sponsoring is meant to roughly balance the expenses of organising the event.

2. Planning budget – ESERA offers the LOC a planning budget of € 500, to be retransferred to ESERA after the conference or summer school. The LOC can, of course, decide not to make use of this offer.

3. Financial support budget – ESERA offers the LOC a budget of maximum € 5,000¹⁾ for financial support of conference or summer school participants. This budget is exclusively meant for supporting ESERA members and, more specifically in the case of summer schools, ESERA PhD student members supervised by an ESERA member. Decisions on how to spend this budget are the responsibility of the LOC. The LOC is, of course, free to create an additional financial support budget and free to set the criteria for spending this non ESERA budget.

4. Requests – Both budgets will be transferred to the LOC before the event on request only. A request should be addressed by letter or email to the ESERA treasurer (for name and address, see the ESERA website), stating the necessary details²⁾.

5. Membership information – The ESERA treasurer will provide details about ESERA membership of individuals to the LOC on request for the sake of checking whether participants (and, in the case of summer schools, their supervisors) are ESERA members before being offered financial support.

6. Conference fee surcharge – Non ESERA members participating at an ESERA Conference pay a surcharge of € 70 on the conference fee³⁾. Cashing these surcharges is the responsibility of the LOC, facilitated by the ESERA treasurer in the following way: the LOC provides the ESERA treasurer with an alphabetical list of participants claiming that they are an ESERA member, the ESERA treasurer will check whether these claims are valid and will then inform the LOC accordingly. The income generated through these surcharges is to be transferred to ESERA after the conference.

7. Finalised account – After the conference or summerschool the LOC provides the ESERA treasurer with an account of the amount spent on financial support from ESERA’s financial support budget (including a specification of names and figures) and, in the case of an ESERA Conference, with an account of the income generated through the € 70 surcharge on the conference fee for non ESERA members. The ESERA treasurer will then provide the LOC with a finalised account of the amount to be transferred to either the LOC or ESERA, taking into account the expenses of the LOC on financial support out of the ESERA budget (up to the above stated maximum and as far as it meets the above stated criteria), the income of the LOC through the conference fee surcharge and the advanced money – if any – transferred to the LOC by ESERA.

8. Additional requests – The ESERA Executive Board will decide on granting additional requests for financial support made by the LOC. It has to be kept in mind, however, that ESERA’s finances are limited.

Notes

¹⁾ The height of this budget might be subject to change as a result of ESERA’s actual financial position. A decision about this is made by the ESERA Executive Board one year before the conference or summer school.

²⁾ Amount, BIC of beneficiary bank and IBAN or account number, name, address, postal code, city and country of beneficiary.

³⁾ ESERA Summer Schools are exclusively meant for ESERA members, so a non member surcharge is not applicable.

March 7, 2007

Koos Kortland – Treasurer ESERA