by Alessandro Vanzetti (alessandro.vanzetti@uniroma1.it)
Dear colleagues,
Thank you for electing me to the Executive Board of EAA in 2014 (Istanbul AM) and again in 2017 (Maastricht AM)! It was a great experience and a long time of working for a shared goal; at the coming Virtual Meeting, I'll end my Board job.
Our association has been growing through these years, and has been able to overcome divisions and troubles, keeping an open, not-for-profit character, and without assuming a heavy managerial structure, while anyway improving governance and efficiency. EAA has thus arrived to this Covid-19 year in promising health, supported by a wide group of engaged members. It is your support and will of a Europe-based communication tool that makes EAA powerful. Evidence for this is the interest in our Virtual Annual Meeting, but also the intense participation in past Annual Meetings in presence, and the rising quality of the sessions and discussions we experienced in the Meetings. Therefore, it was an honour to serve in the Executive Board (ExB).
During these years, we empowered our Secretariat in Prague, thanks to your participation, in order to refine services, but also to make possible the assumption of most of the EAA Annual Meeting organization in-house. This has the goal to give the best opportunities to members, through an accurate control of budgets and costs, and of the quality of programs and scientific content. It seems to me that it is going in the right direction, and participation is now also supported by the grants of the Oscar Montelius Foundation. The proposal of timely keynote lectures was another achievement of the last years. I helped to make significant changes in our Statutes – and we still have more to do – to comply with the ongoing changes in the discipline, in the contemporary world, in your needs. The re-institution of the Illicit Trade Committee, now Community, has been another task I contributed to.
As responsible for publications, I was involved in the appointment of our new Editor of the European Journal, Catherine Frieman, after the successful work by Robin Skeates, and of the Deputy Editor, Zena Kamash. We succeeded in giving a new course to the Series Themes, with a new contract with Springer, just signed by the President, and we are discussing intensely about the future of the Journal, in terms of Open Access, intending to give the best platform to our members, both for their products, and for a quality selection of papers.
Stewardship, critical view and constructive decisions, discussion and appreciation for syntheses, drove my job: I hope my view is not too much a personal illusion, but a fact that can be perceived. Indeed, taking part into the Executive Board was much more, thanks to the presence of committed colleagues, open discussions, peer relationships, informality, and capacity of achieving results; and thanks to the support of members (e.g. in the Annual Business Meeting) and of the wonderful professionals we have now in the Secretariat. I see a stronger EAA, even in a troubled Europe. I am certain that in the next years we will contribute to make it even stronger and tailored for our professional and scientific needs. I would like to remind some of the points of my experience in the Board that can maybe result useful as critical thinking and for future planning.
1. Statutes & Handbook
As some of you know, I was somehow in charge, and active, in both providing a liaison between the Board and a Task Force on Statutes, in 2015, and later by working for each year’s proposed modifications, together with the Secretary, the Secretariat and the Lawyers (and the Board).
In 2014, when I was elected in the Board at the Istanbul Meeting, EAA came out of a very difficult situation, generated by the Presidency of Friedrich Lüth, that caused a crisis with our Administrator, Sylvie Kvetinova (at that time the only Secretariat member we had), and a fracture inside the Board. At almost the same time, we received the document, commissioned by Lüth’s Board and provided by Adrian Olivier (paid for his services), about the evaluation of EAA and the perspectives for its further development. I will return to this document at point nr. 7.
The crisis and the way in which the resignation by Lüth took place in Istanbul showed that we needed to update our Statutes and to decide how, and how far, to implement Olivier’s evaluation, as the EAA had to get sounder basis for its procedures and internal democratic process.
The lawyers’ suggestions have then contributed to align the EAA with the Czech law, a fact very important, in order to keep our not-for-profit status and to help developing the Secretariat, now soundly based in Prague.
Therefore, EAA Statutes’ changes have had and will have two roles: pursue our goals as an association, adapting to the changing views of archaeology and Heritage, and keep in line with the legal accomplishments.
I want only to remind 2 aspects:
- A. Europe has a traditional divide between the Civil (or statutory) law tradition (ultimately based on the legacy of the Roman Law), that tends to define everything beforehand, in statutes and bylaws, and the Common law tradition, characteristic of Northwest, and in part Northern Europe, based on customs and judicial precedents. This has a consequence in members that wish to have more details written in Statutes and other ones that wish less details and more informed decisions. We have to find the difficult line to preserve much of both, but as we are based in a Civil law country (Czech Republic), I guess this somehow has pre-eminence. At least, this is my opinion.
- B. It is important to involve the Statutes Committee earlier in the process of change, I would say as an advisory group, and not only as an evaluation group, after the Executive Board has decided what changes are to be proposed. This was manifest in this year’s discussion, mainly with John Carman, that required a proposal about the new Members’ category of Young Professionals to be postponed, among others, because divides emerged in their definition, between Board’s proposal and Carman, but also inside the Statutes Committee itself. It is clear that more thoughtful discussions will be needed, and also a capacity of adaptation and change both in the Board and in the Statutes Committee. I can in the future come back on this argument, if any Task Force is created, if you ask me.
As for the Handbook: it is here that non-statutory procedures are described, and it is almost as important as the Statutes. Its revision is a heavy task, intermingled with Statutes and Codes of Practice/Ethics, Communities, etc. It has therefore to consider a lot of aspects, and to take rid of some past burden it still has inside: it has to reach a fully coherent and updated version, as only some parts of it (e.g. Annual Meetings’ procedures) have got to this point; it is a huge task where ExB Members must help the Secretariat.
2. Publications
EJA: the main issue for the Journal is to understand who shall be the future Publisher, and with which strategy, if all Gold Open Access (GOA: paid for? by whom?) or not. Much of this depends on the implementation of Plan-S, both as EU-ERC level and as single National levels. As I quoted in the AMBM, “Plan Science (S) was a strategy developed by 19 Science Agencies to make the research they fund open-access on publication as a funding requirement. ERC was among these Science Agencies, but on July 20th it withdrew from Plan-S, while still supporting Open Access. Publishing companies have been pushing the solution of the read-and-publish deals with libraries and institutions, that is: the institutions pay to read and to publish a certain amount of Open Access papers per year, as a part of the economic deal. The situation requires careful information and evaluation, and timely plans in the next future.”
Furthermore, as I expressed many times, I am against double-blind reviews, because I find it falsely democratic and equal, and it doesn’t allow to effectively cope with plagiarism, correct authorship (people excluded from signing) and self-quotation, but the EJA in its autonomy decided to adopt this policy. I still hope it can be reversed in future.
Themes: I strongly support a full implementation of the contract with Springer and hope it can last more than 3 years. Certainly, GOA in Springer is expensive, but this is the same for many publishers, and the book market is very poor now. We were spending a lot of money with Routledge, and we will not with Springer. In fact, EAA will receive a one-time 5,000 € signing fee when 4 volume contracts are signed (2020? 2021?); 500 € per published volume; royalties past 500 copies sold (very unlikely); an additional annual 1,000 € fee every year in which at least 5 book manuscripts (approved for publication) have been delivered to Publisher for production. This encourages us to improve the number of volumes submitted and published.
A reminder should be sent to Members, as soon as a volume with Springer is published, that they have a 25% discount (we managed to raise this % during contract discussion): Springer is not cheap, but this can help and provide some service to Members.
Elements: the series has still to appear in its full power, and relevance, as the first volume is now under press, and we don’t know anything about reception. I would only suggest more communication to take place between the Editors (it is important to remember that they have an independent contract with CUP) and EAA Members, as for instance the list of titles and authors that was screened at AMBM but not inserted in the Report. It is all a matter for the future.
3. Future Annual Meetings
As some of you know, I am committed to organizing an Annual Meeting in Rome, bidding for 2025 by January 2021 (terms agreed in this year’s difficulties).
Setting this apart, I foresee difficulties in the near future to provide proper financial estimations, until we know if meetings will take place in-person or virtually, and in the case of hybrid meetings, what will be the reliable combined costs and the fee level for a virtual or traditional choice. It is likely that you shall be required to provide both accesses (in-person and virtual), a fact that requires special care.
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A. FEES: I mean that it is unlikely in the future that virtual access to the Meeting can be provided free of charge, with simple membership, as there are costs, which – in the case of an in-presence Meeting – are in any case additional costs (as the Virtual option is a plus). A reduced fee for access only to the virtual content has to be carefully considered. In fact, it is true that events such as the Opening reception or the Annual Party (and the fees that apply for the Conference rooms/building lease) are only for the people physically present, but it would be a problem if the introduction of the virtual choice, and a reduction in presence, would cause a significant rise in costs for members physically attending the Meeting. This would widen the gap between rich and poor members, or between those who can have a refund from his/her Institution and those who cannot, e.g. in terms of in-person networking. Therefore, it seems to me likely that no discount, or only a minor discount (accounting for the Events’ costs) can be foreseen for a virtual choice in joining an Annual Meeting. This means that new members may find it puzzling if the next year they will find a rather high fee for a virtual attendance, while this year it was free: it will require proper communication.
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B. HOW MUCH VIRTUAL? In the case of a mixed Meeting, could sessions be held, or coordinated partially or totally in a Virtual environment? In this case, if a Session is e.g. only screened (organizers and speakers operating remotely), we would require anyway a proper room for attendance in-person at the Meeting, and therefore a cost.
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C. VOLUNTEERS/STAFF: they are required both for the in-person and the virtual environment, with more difficult tasks in a mixed one.
- D. CONNECTION: in a mixed Meeting, the Conference seat must have a perfect connectivity in all the conference rooms/areas, which is not so obviously the case.
- E. AMBM: it is not so easy to balance in-person and remote attendance; I am certain that we will solve the problems of counting and quora, but it becomes more complicated (as for the Opening), because it should probably be screened through a live camera and not only through a Zoom or Hopin-like software (while the rest of the Meeting could).
- These are only my first thoughts, but anyway, the whole process will require more information and creative thought, and maybe trials-and-errors.
4. Codes of practice/ethics etc.
Maria Mina is guiding the process. We decided, as the Board, that there will be multiple, targeted codes, under a general umbrella, and some may be codes of ethics, some codes of practice.
The Illicit trade Committee is preparing a code for scientific analysis and expertise of cultural heritage items, involving obligations for members of responsible practice. This will be a code of ethics, that is a code setting general principles about this subject. As an EAA code, it will not necessarily comply with single state’s existing laws: it will fly somehow below and over them, as regarding a community of members. This will be similarly happening for many different codes, like the one about human remains; etc. etc. I will be certainly involved in the two quoted here (Cultural materials and human remains), and it will be a pleasure to keep in touch. Codes should also have the task to promote an alignment in the single countries’ associations and laws.
5. Communities
The communities have got a strong impulse in the last years, in my view mostly thanks to Felipe Criado-Boado’s and Sophie Hüglin’s action. They can be strengthened further and -most of all- more members be prompted to join them: 901 registrations to Communities were recorded in the recent AMBM, but many will be double registrations by the same members (as they can subscribe to two of them), and by Sophie Hüglin, who, as ex-officio member, was registered 11 times, for each community. Until the Communities take more autonomous life, we cannot be completely trusting of their effective role. We discussed whether to stimulate donations to Communities or even let members allocate part of their membership fee to a Community of reference, but we never implemented it.
National Communities: I would have supported the creation of national EAA working groups, not to create barriers, but to promote membership and proactive action on a local level, in a pan-European perspective. We did not agree about this.
6. Memoranda of Understanding
We have a (special) Memorandum with the MERC, that has to be renewed, and we managed to sign other Memoranda, like the ones with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte (DGUF), the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAFA) or with the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology International (CAA-International) and the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists (CIFA). It would be important to have other relations with other learned societies, such as the Panafrican Archaeological Association (PANAF), or the Societies of professionals working in Asia and Oceania, as well as Latin America.
7. EAA structure
I personally think we took the right decision, in the implementation of a new EAA after 2014, and after the Olivier’s Report I quoted under point nr.1. That is, we chose to remain an Association of Members, not-for-profit and without professional Officers: our Officers (and Board Members) are volunteers and elected; they receive reimbursements, but do not have a stipend of any type; in fact, we decided (so far) not to have an Executive Director (paid). At the same time, we improved the Secretariat, and we invested in this capacity of the EAA, in order to take control of the Annual Meetings in organizational terms. We invested in ITs (purchasing the basic IT system from iMIS and the Conference system from Klinkhamer Group) and in Secretariat jobs, thus creating an important group of dedicated workers, often exceeding their duties. It is this choice that gave us the current positive perspectives, together with the Governance improvement.
As for the Governance, the formal structuring of the Management Group (Officers + vice-President) has given the EAA a quicker and more effective Governance tool that goes side-by-side with the Secretariat improvement. I personally think that sometimes the Management Group goes borderline with the tasks of the Executive Board, and that a formal definition – either in the Statutes or in the Handbook, or in both – is needed, but it is certainly a productive driving tool.
8. Corporates and Affiliates
A closer cooperation with Corporate Associations would be important. In Bern we discussed with them and foresaw the production of a sort of Corporates’ forum, and to give them better information through an (updated) dedicated part of the Handbook. I would push forward with this.
We have another type of possible cooperation with Associations, as Affiliate Organizations: this was introduced for Associations maintaining a significant number of members (at least 5), to be appointed the Affiliate status (but not having the money, or willing, to become Corporates). We should promote this role with the other numerous associations that could fulfil the terms (e.g. Ministry Offices, Universities, Professional societies, etc.), in order to empower our network capacity.
9. Board atmosphere
The atmosphere since my first meeting (the emergency meeting held in Istanbul, after the chaotic Business Meeting and Friederich Lüth’s resignation without a presidential election) has always been supportive, targeted, open for discussion, also in difficult times. I owe to Marc Lodewijcx, Margaret Gowen and Felipe Criado-Boado (and Karen Waugh) much for their capacity of driving the process, but also to all the Board Members, both regular and ex-officio ones, who were inspiring also in disagreement.
I hope this spirit will be kept, and that the Management Group’s activity won’t make the Board Meetings a decorative fact, as in some cases a wider discussion and brainstorming is important.
An example is the need to discuss about Financial aspects (getting into figures’ explanation), which are solidly in the hands of Krisztina Pavlickova and Esa Mikkola, now, but whose wider discussion is always a positive and constructive tool; strategic decisions also benefit from this kind of wider discussion.
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