Dear Locators,

this year we secured a budget from EURO for a new initiative to support and encourage local or topic-specific location meetings. If you wish to organize a scientific meeting or workshop around a specific topic such as competitive location, emergency facility location, stochastic location etc. or a meeting covering a broader range of location topics in your institution, you will be able to request support from EWGLA up to a maximum of €1,000. The meeting should be open to the entire location community, and it must be announced via the EWGLA mailing list and the web site of the organized meeting (upon approval of the support). The procedure for applications and decisions for support is planned as follows:

The EWGLA board will announce a call twice a year. Applicants need to submit a brief letter of intention (about one page) to organize a meeting within the next 12 months (exceptionally within 15 months for the very first call). The applications will be evaluated within two weeks after the deadline and the amount of support will be communicated to the applicants. The letter of intention should provide the following details:

1. A brief description of the meeting, including sufficient information about the format (workshop, conference etc.), the organizers, and the target audience. 2. The topic and how it relates to Location Science. 3. A brief motivation on how this meeting will contribute to the advancement of Location Science or how the (local or international) location community will benefit from it. 4. A concrete explanation and reasoning for the kind of support that is asked for from EWGLA (travel expenses for invited external speakers, supporting student participation, etc.). 5. The budget requested from EWGLA and a plan of the estimated budget for the entire meeting. Note that all expenses will have to be justified with receipts and proofs of payment. 6. Mention of other potential supports from local/international societies, organizations (government, NGO), universities or industry.

The deadline for the first call of this year is 30 April 2023.

As this is the very first call of the initiative, if you are already planning to organize a meeting before 31 July 2024, you are encouraged to submit your application to the EWGLA Board before this deadline. Depending on the number of applications received by the deadline, it will be possible to provide partial or full support (up to a maximum of €1,000) after evaluation. We want to support these events as much as possible, so if you are planning to organize a meeting but cannot finalize all the details for the first deadline, please contact us with all the details you already know. It may not be possible to guarantee support to organizations if an application, even a partial one, is not submitted by 30 April 2023. The deadline of the second call for proposals will be around 30 September 2023.

All the best, Hatice Çalik, Boglárka G.-Tóth, Carmela Piccolo, Jörg Kalcsics EWGLA Coordination Board

---------------------------------------------- Joerg Kalcsics Reader in Operational Research Programme Director OR MSc School of Mathematics University of Edinburgh

James Clerk Maxwell Building Peter Guthrie Tait Road Edinburgh, EH9 3FD, UK

Room: 6226 Phone: +44 (0)131 650 5953

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.