V&L Net
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The EPSRC Network on Vision and Language (V&L Net) is a forum for researchers from the fields of Computer Vision and Language Processing to meet, exchange ideas, expertise and technology, and form new partnerships.
Our aim is to create a lasting interdisciplinary research community situated at the language-vision interface, jointly working towards solutions for some of today's most challenging computational challenges, including image and video search, description of visual content and text-to-image generation.

As a research collaboration forum, V&L Net has a real-life and a virtual dimension. We hold annual V&L Net meetings which combine the characteristics of an academic conference, a networking event and an exhibition. At the same time, the V&L Net website offers a wide variety of different tools and resources including networking tools and repositories of publications, data resources and software tools.


The Pump-priming Vision&  Language Research Scheme
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V&L Net provides funding to members with the aim of pump-priming research collaboration. We support research collaboration meetings between small groups of network members which have the specific aim of developing and writing a joint proposal involving researchers at different institutions (including industrial partners).

In order to have a transparent and accountable mechanism for funding such meetings, we post 6-monthly calls for research project proposal ideas. The V&L Net Steering Committee selects two submissions from each call which receive financial support for meetings aimed at developing the project idea and preparing bids for funding.


Details of this Call (2011-1):

This first call for proposals is not restricted to any particular topic (although subsequent calls may be).  However, proposal topics must either be interdisciplinary, involving researchers from both language processing and computer vision, or be located in one discipline, with clear relevance to the other.  The assessment criteria will be:

1. Potential to achieve progress on research challenges that involve both
    language and vision;
2. Innovation;
3. Suitability of the project team.

Each submission will be reviewed by at least three members of the V&L Net steering committee.  The steering committee (excluding members involved in a submitted proposal idea) will create a ranked list of submitted proposals. The final decision regarding funding will be made by the network coordinators.


Submission Guidelines:

Please send a 2-page outline of the project idea in PDF format to vl-net@brighton.ac.uk no later than 11 Feb 2011. The outline should include the following information:

1. Names of the investigators, their affiliations and brief track record; 2. List of other researchers involved; 3. High-level synopsis of the project idea; 4. Funding body to which proposal will be submitted; 5. Envisaged number of meetings and estimated cost of each meeting.


Eligibility:

The proposed principal investigators and co-investigators must be full V&L Net members at the time of submission (please refer to the V&L Net website for membership information; for URL see below).  At least one investigator must be employed by a UK institution eligible to apply for research council funding.

The project team must involve researchers from at least two sites.

Members of the V&L Net Steering Committee may be involved in a proposal submitted to this call.

We envisage supporting an average of 3 meetings per proposal, with 2 to 3 researchers traveling per meeting. Submitted proposal outlines may ask for financial support for more, but if the average exceeds the above, then we will introduce a cap to ensure we do not exceed the intended average.


Requirements and details of financial support for winning proposals:

We will publicise successful proposals on the V&L Net website, including a very brief description of the topic of the proposal idea (as composed by the investigators).

We will also ask successful applicants to provide us with a progress report at the end of the funding period (to enable us to periodically review the success of the scheme).

V&L Net will reimburse costs incurred in connection with proposal development meetings. Eligible costs are accommodation expenses, UK travel (including the UK part of international travel) and meals. Such costs will be reimbursed upon submission of expense claim forms.  All expense claims will have to be submitted by the end of the funding period (31 Aug 2011 for this call).  The sum total of all expense claims must not exceed the amount originally requested in the proposal outline submission.


Deadlines:

Submission of proposals		11 Feb 2011
Notification of outcome		05 Mar 2011
Funding period			01 Apr to 30 Sep 2011


Contacts:

V&L Net email address: vl-net@brighton.ac.uk V&L Net website: http://www.vl-net.org.uk