2020-12-31-accounts

AGM 2021

Secretary’s Report: Eamon McCarthy

Thanks to all the SLAS committee for their support this year.

SLAS Grant Schemes and Awards

A significant percentage of SLAS income continues to be reinvested in the form of grants and awards. This year, we have created a number of new awards in response to the pandemic and have been flexible around when awards can be spent.

Last year, I reported on the awards we had allocated, however in a number of cases, the money allocated was returned to SLAS. In other cases, we have been flexible with when money can be spent. This is an update on what happened with the awards made in 2020:

• Postgraduate & Postdoctoral Travel Grants – some recipients were not able to use these awards, while others have had the period to claim back the money extended to October 2021. The extension is offered on the basis that the award is used for the same project detailed in the application.

• Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Conference Grants & Latin American Scholar Grants – these were made to attend the SLAS2020 conference, which ran virtually in the end. Where a recipient had incurred expenses that could not be refunded, SLAS covered these costs up to the value of the grant awarded. Many of these awards were not spent because of the pandemic. Unspent funds were redirected to the COVID-19 Hardship Fund.

• Conference and Event and Seminar Grants -one event had already happened before the pandemic struck. One other event was cancelled because of the pandemic. Funding for the other three events was carried forward.

We will not be running the Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Conference Grants or the Latin American Scholar Grants this year as these schemes are normally used to support travel to the annual conference. The money usually allocated to these schemes has been spent on the virtual conference (Gather Space and abstract management via Oxford Abstracts) and on the new PG & PD Research support award.

Since the AGM in 2020 the following awards have been made:

Society for Latin American Studies COVID-19 Hardship Fund

As some of the travel funding that had been allocated could not be spent, we created a COVID19 Hardship Fund based on a model shared by Royal Historical Society. This funding of up to £500 was available to help support SLAS PG and postdoc members in this time of extraordinary crisis. Awards were not intended nor required to support research activities. Instead, this funding was to support day-to-day financial challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic and included cases where fellowships were cancelled or where work at universities had been significantly reduced or terminated prematurely in response to COVID-19.

We made a total of 15 awards under this scheme (to a total of £7292).

Due to the sensitivity of applying for hardship funds, we will not list recipients of the funding and do not expect recipients to disclose the funding unless they chose to.

SLAS Postdoctoral Research Award

This is a scheme that offers £2000 to support the work of postdoctoral researchers. We increased the awards available from three up to four in recognition of the exceptionally high standard of applications.

• Struan Gray

• Rebecca Irons

• Karunika Kardak

• Beth Pearson

Postgraduate & Postdoctoral Travel Grants

15 grants worth up to £1000 are available to postgraduate and postdoctoral members to encourage and assist with travel. In this year, we awarded funding to all applications received (9 in total). It has been agreed that unspent funds can be reallocated to the PG & PD Research support award.

• Paulina Caro Troncoso (Edinburgh)

• Pietra Cepero Rua Perez (Durham)

• Susanna Corona (UCL)

• Carlos Cruz Mosquera (QMUL)

• Giovanna Gini (QMUL)

• Nicolas Gomez Baeza (Warwick)

• Valentina Infante Batiste (Oxford)

• Nuni Jorgensen (QMUL)

• Jelani Munroe (Oxford)

Conference and Event and Seminar Grants Support

A total of £4,000 is available to support SLAS members organise events in their own institutions. This year awards were made to:

• Lorena Cervera Ferrer (UCL), ‘Latin American Feminist Film Collectives 1975-2020’ (£1000)

• Chiara Chiavaroli (LSE), ‘Mapping Cosmos: Earth-beings, Bodies and Territories in Latin America’ (£500)

• Emily Gregg (Latin American Bureau), ‘Voices: www.vola.org.uk’ (£900)

Blakemore Prize

The 2020 Blakemore Prize was awarded to: Valentina Infante Batista (Oxford) for her essay ‘Ya dijimos NO pero el SÍ está en todo. The memories of the dictatorship in Chile’s social mobilisations (October 2019 – February 2020)’.

The winner of the 2021 Prize is Charlotte Eaton (LSE) for her essay ‘Colombian foreign policy and the Spanish civil war, 1936-1939’.

PG & PD Research Support Grants

This is a new grant scheme introduced this year with a deadline of 30 May. We will make available up to 10 grants worth up to £500 each to postgraduate and postdoctoral members to support research costs (e.g. purchasing image rights, indexing, translation costs, coproduction of outputs etc.). This is a more flexible grant scheme that has been developed as a response to the pandemic as a supplement to our other schemes that usually focus on travel costs.

I will report on recipients of these awards next year as the deadline for applications has not yet passed.

Elections to the SLAS Committee

The Secretary reported on the outcome of the 2021 elections.

The following posts were available:

• President: standard two-year post

• Vice-President: standard two-year post

• 3 x Ordinary Members: standard two-year post

By the deadline, the required number of nominations had been received for each of the following posts, and nominees were thus appointed to the posts.

President: Thea Pitman (Leeds)

3 x Ordinary Members: Eve Hayes de Kalaf (Liverpool), Paul Merchant (Bristol), Rebecca Ogden (Kent)

By the deadline, two valid nominations had been received for the position of Vice President. An election was held and Marieke Riethof (Liverpool) was duly elected to the position.

SLAS FINANCES 1/1/20-31/12/20

PREAMBLE

This report covers the calendar year 2020

1. Pence have been rounded down (1-50) or up (51-99) to the nearest £

2. Reserves at 1 January 2020 stood at 213,965 (NatWest 213,958; 7 Cash-in-hand)

INCOME: 90,350

Wiley 89,115; Donations 475; Skipton Building Society 385

Note: a further 4,528 was paid into the NatWest account in respect of refunds for advance payments for accommodation and travel for Committee members who had planned to attend the aborted Conference in Amsterdam. A further 1,383 was refunded by NatWest which had erroneously double-charged for bank transfers m made to 2 Latin-American Scholars who had insisted that they were unable to secure refunds for cancelled flight from Mexico for the cancelled Congress. I suggest that we do not count these sums as income for they were largely outweighed by the initial advances/offers made by SLAS.

EXPENDITURE: 64,642

Annual Conference 11,409 (of which 10,969 paid to the University of Amsterd am

Blakemore Prize 600

BLAR Editorial Assistant 21,047 salary + consumables

BLAR Editors' Emoluments 6,000

BLAR Editors’ Expenses 1,033

Committee Expenses 2,266

Note I have excluded advance payments, largely refunded for the cancelled Congress

Hardship Awards 7,292 (not included in the original buget

LA Scholars 1,557

P/g Fieldwork 4,000

Note: those unclaimed in 2020 might have to be paid later this year

P/g Overseas Conferences ditto

PILAS 944

Post=doc awards 6,000

Seminars/Conferences 469

Standing Conference 29

Subscriptions 100 (UCML)

Translations 403

Website etc. 1,493

CONCLUSION

The opening balance of 213,965 plus 2020 income of 90,350, minus expenditure of 64,642 left a balance of 239,673 for carrying forward to 2021. This is held as follows: 168,021 in the Society’s NatWest account, and 75,000. in the Skipton Building Society account..

JOHN FISHER (SLAS TREASURER)

2 April 2021

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