School of Computing
Research and Innovation Committee

Conference policy

ADOPTED 4 January 2017

The University and the School wish to support staff and PhD students in attending conferences [use of the word "conference" includes all forms of research and innovation meeting including workshops, symposia, etc.] that stimulate and promote their research and innovation activity.
A budget for this has been set aside by the Head of School. Spending that budget has been delegated to the School Research and Innovation Committee. Note that this budget is not intended to support pure staff development activity – a separate budget exists for that.
The objectives supported by this budget expenditure are to:

conferences at which a oral presentation will be given (5) over a poster (2)
conferences where a credible case is made that the presented work will lead (directly or indirectly) to a higher-quality publication (e.g. in a journal) (3) over no further publication (0)
cases where 50% or more (5) or less than 50% (3) of the costs have been or will be covered by other funding obtained by the applicant, or where there is evidence that other funding (from outside the Faculty) has been applied for but not succeeded (1)
staff and PhD students who have not been supported by this fund for over two years (3), over one year (1), since a previous approval this year (0)
papers where there is more than one SoC academic staff author (1) over none (0)
conferences where there is evidence of prestige, low-acceptance rates or other "good" characteristics (5, 3, 1)
conferences where a credible case is made that attending will contribute to improving our impact (2, 1, 0)
conferences where a credible case is made that there will be a longer-term outcome from attending (e.g. a funding bid, something else strategic) (3, 2, 1)
conferences where someone from Portsmouth is conference/programme chair (2), or on the conference/programme committee (1) over not (0)

staff over PhD students, or vice versa
invited talks over uninvited talks (the assumption is that invitations will include at least some contribution to the cost)

From August 2016, Consideration will also be taken of the extent to which the outcomes predicted in previous funded applications have been realised.
Cost/benefit will also be taken into account on a sliding scale. The higher the cost (e.g. overseas trips or long conferences), the more benefit will need to be demonstrated.
Initially, there will be no minimum score for funding, but we may introduce that in the future in the light of experience.

The Research Committee will consider applications 4 times a year at approximately 3-month intervals. The deadline for applications will be published. Each time, the Committee will be able to spend 25% of the annual budget, plus any underspend from previous rounds in the financial year, plus up to 10% from future rounds.
Staff (on behalf of themselves or their PhD student) will complete an application form. The application will be considered by the Research Committee and one of the following decisions will be reached:

Where a conference is ranked A or A* by CORE, the first application to submit a paper to that conference will normally be approved.
An Executive Subcommittee (chair + HoS) can make urgent decisions in circumstances where a delay to the next deadline would mean a missed opportunity.

Updated to