Affinity Groups

Groups

Culture&Arts – Affinity group dedicated to culture and the arts in the SE field

Migrations – Affinity group dedicated to addressing the challenges of migrations in the SE field

Social impact (SISE) – Affinity group dedicated to social impact in the SE field

RUR-SE – Affinity group dedicated to rural and regional perspectives on the social and solidarity economy and social innovation

Central and East Europe and SE field (CEE & SE) – This group gathered several researchers from Central and East Europe, including academics from Poland, Romania, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia.

Aims

The aims of an affinity group (AG) are:

• To make it easier for members to organise focused conference sessions, project proposals and other activities on a specific topic, such as meetings and PhD symposia, within the EMES network.
• To strengthen the community feeling among members of these groups.
• To innovate and develop bottom-up initiatives.

Within its conferences, EMES will retain a mixed model. In addition to the activities by AGs, there will always be open sessions in which anyone can participate.

Establishment procedure

For the creation of an AG, the EMES Board of Directors will consider proposals from individual and institutional EMES members for the creation of an AG. Interested members should submit a proposal to the EMES secretariat, by e-mail at members@emes.net.

The proposal should be no longer than four pages in length and contain:

• A description of the subject area(s) to be covered by the AG and its distinctiveness compared to other groups in EMES and other international research networks.
• A brief plan of the types of concrete activities to be undertaken over the next four years.
• A list of interested persons (a minimum of 15, including names and institution/country of employment). All interested members must be (affiliated to) current members of EMES.
• The names and contact details of the AG directors. These must be at least people, all (affiliated to) current members of EMES, from at least two countries. One must be named as principal contact.

Benefits

AG directors will have the following privileges:

• They will be guaranteed at least three 1.5-hour sessions within the EMES conference (more optional if requested by the paper submission deadline).
• They can determine the format of the sessions, independently of the general format of the conference.
• They will be allowed to evaluate abstracts submitted to their group. Abstracts rejected by AGs will be referred to the open track.
• EMES will publicise their activities through all its media channels including the EMES blog and social media (Facebook and Twitter).
• There will be a group page on the EMES website, if requested.

Requirements

• Each AG must cover its own running costs. EMES will not provide any automatic financial support for an AG although support for local fundraising can be provided.
• Attendance at group events must be open to all EMES members and conference attendees, unless there is a specific reason to keep a meeting closed (for instance, the discussion of competitive project proposals).
• Each AG will submit a two-page report after each EMES conference. These will describe: attendance at the sessions, the issues discussed and followup activities. The report must be submitted to the EMES secretariat by 1 October following the conference.
• Each AG should contribute at least four short blurbs about its activities/members to EMES covering any kind of format members choose: summary of activities, interviews, featured initiative/member, etc.

Termination and continuation

• AGs will automatically expire after four years. They may, however, request an extension of another four years. To do this, they must submit a fourpage report describing their activities of the past four years and future plans.
• The EMES Board may choose to terminate an AG at any time on grounds, such as failure to adhere to the required procedures, inactivity over a period of years, or divergence from the interests of EMES.

Questions?

Please send your questions to members@emes.net