CoFI WG: Administrative information

Keeping in touch

News for CoFI WG participants concerning major technical milestones and upcoming meetings will be broadcast on the (moderated) cofi-list@brics.dk mailing list to which everybody should subscribe. Each task group has a separate moderated mailing list for technical discussion. Information about these mailing lists, including subscription instructions and archives, is here.

Past events

7-10 Nov 1998: CoFI workshop in Cachan, near Paris (Information and registration form)

27-28 Mar 1999: CoFI workshop in Amsterdam as ETAPS'99 satellite

18-20 Jun 1999: Meeting of CoFI reactive systems task group in Paris

15-18 Sep 1999: CoFI events in connection with WADT'99 in Bonas (information, more information, even more information)

21 Sep 1999: CoFI workshop at FM'99 in Toulouse. Note that CoFI WG will only fund attendance at FM'99 for people who are speaking at this workshop or attending FM'99 to present a paper about some aspect of CoFI or CASL, see here.

5-7 Feb 2000: CoFI workshop in Genova

1-2 Apr 2000: CoFI workshop in Berlin as ETAPS 2000 satellite

summer 2000: CoFI workshop and Summer School in Edinburgh CANCELLED

10-11 Sep 2000: CoFI tools workshop in Bremen (Information and registration form)

1-3 April 2001: CoFI workshop in connection with WADT 2001 in Genova as ETAPS 2001 satellite, including a CoFI tutorial (funding information, clarification, more information, deadline for expense claims)

Funding for CoFI-related travel

You need to do the following once only, before your first funded trip:
  1. Check that you are located in the EU or one of the ex-Soviet bloc countries or in Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein or Norway.
  2. Check that you are either at a partner site (Edinburgh, Bremen, Warsaw, Cachan, Nancy, Genova, Aarhus) or on the list of people who may be funded. This list includes all the people in Europe who have contributed to CoFI so far, to the best of my knowledge, plus a few others. My apologies if I have inadvertently omitted somebody. There is no problem in expanding this list and no obligation is implied, but you must ask me to have your name added at least two weeks before you book tickets for your first funded trip, since we are required to get prior written permission from Brussels. I will need the following information: your name; your complete address including e-mail and WWW home page if any; a one-sentence description of your activity/expertise and the general area of your contribution to CoFI.

You need to do the following for each trip:

  1. Check that your trip is either to attend a CoFI workshop, or to visit a partner site (Edinburgh, Bremen, Warsaw, Cachan, Nancy, Genova, Aarhus) or to visit one of the sites listed here. Other destinations are possible but only by special arrangement through me. (Ask at least two weeks in advance for a destination within Europe, much further in advance for a destination elsewhere.)
  2. Get permission from a relevant task group coordinator: They need to know where you are going when and (briefly) what you will do on CoFI. Something along the lines "I want to attend the Semantics meeting in Cachan in November" or "I want to visit Maura in Genova to work on subsorting in March" will suffice. If you have no prior involvement with CoFI then normally you will be funded to attend one workship as an observer but further trips will require active participation. Even if your trip involves a contribution to more than one task group, permission from one task group coordinator will suffice.
    When asking a TG coordinator for funding, please include an estimated budget. It is enough to give totals under the following headings: travel, registration fees, accommodation, meals. Give amounts in Euros. Extreme accuracy is unnecessary, but please try to make the total within about 100 Euros of what you will eventually claim.
  3. Make the trip and work hard.
  4. Unless the trip was to attend a CoFI workshop, write a few sentences describing what you did for inclusion in progress reports. For example: "Andrzej Tarlecki visited Don Sannella in Edinburgh on 1-5 December 1998 to work on proof rules for CASL. Proof rules for all constructs of structured specifications were written and shown to be sound with respect to the CASL semantics." E-mail this to cofi-wg@dcs.ed.ac.uk when you submit your expense claim.
  5. Submit an expense claim to Edinburgh. Here are some instructions to help you to fill out the form. The form is available electronically here: but you will have to send it with receipts to the following address by ordinary mail:
    Margaret Davis (CoFI WG)
    Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
    Division of Informatics
    University of Edinburgh
    Edinburgh EH9 3JZ
    Scotland
    e-mail: cofi-wg@dcs.ed.ac.uk
  6. Wait for the refund. If you have done everything above and you have filled out the form correctly then expect to wait a month. If you have waited much longer then this without receiving a refund then contact cofi-wg@dcs.ed.ac.uk.

Acknowledging CoFI WG support in publications

You should acknowledge CoFI WG support in your CoFI-related publications, especially if they have actually benefitted from CoFI WG funding. (If you have received CoFI WG funding to attended any CoFI workshop then presumably your CoFI-related publications will have benefitted in some fashion from what was discussed there?) Here is a suggested form of words:
This research has been partially supported by ESPRIT working group 29432 (CoFI WG).

Some frequently asked questions

Q
During what period can travel be funded?
A
CoFI WG started on 1st October 1998 and will finish on 30th April 2001 (NEW!), and only trips taking place during this period can be funded.

Q
Can I include conference fees in my expense claim?
A
You can charge conference fees for ETAPS'99, WADT'99, ETAPS 2000 or ETAPS 2001 if your trip is for attendance at the associated CoFI workshop. You can charge conference fees for FM'99 if you are speaking at the associated CoFI workshop or are attending FM'99 to present a paper about some aspect of CoFI or CASL. Otherwise you can only do this by special arrangement well in advance: ask me.

Q
The procedure for getting travel funding sounds really bureaucratic. Why are there so many rules?
A
Most of the rules are imposed by ESPRIT. I list them above in order to avoid misunderstanding later. A few are to simplify the administration of the WG and to ensure that funded travel is CoFI-related.

Q
Can't you just transfer a sum of money to my university and I will submit cost statements?
A
No, we have decided to run things as described above.

Documents

The CoFI WG proposal
Annex I to the CoFI WG contract. This contains more detail than the proposal about some points, but note that the list of "individuals from non-partner sites" in Section 3 is superceded by the longer list here.
CoFI WG reports: Oct 1998 - Sep 1999 and appendix; Oct 1999 - Sep 2000; final report
The ESPRIT model contract for working groups (Word document)
ESPRIT cost statement guidelines (Word document)

Don Sannella
Last modified: Tue Jun 29 14:45:00 BST 2004