Sponsorship

EFS International Forum

Wednesday and Thursday, April 5 & 6, 2023:

University of Miami Lakeside Village Expo Center
1280 Stanford Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146

For more information, visit the Forum website: https://expertfindersystems.org

Purpose

The EFS International Forum creates a venue for stakeholders to network, learn from each other, and help steer the future of this dynamic field.

Overview

Since the first EFS International Forum in 2019, a growing community has been engaging in an important dialogue. Conversations center on metadata and content used to tell the impact stories of faculty members, research institutes, centers, and foundations; federal-, state-, and privately funded research; economic development efforts; and community engagement.

The systems and use cases take many forms and are known by an assortment of names, including, but not limited to:

• Expertise discovery
• Content-rich profiling and networking sites
• Research information management systems (RIMS)
• Faculty activity reporting systems (FARS)
• Current research information systems (CRIS)
• Networking platforms and other curated information

The Forum's Steering Committee is organizing and hosting this event to include leaders from:

• Higher education, including faculty, librarians, administrators, corporate/community relations staff , economic development professionals, and data and information management personnel
• Vendors and nonprofit/open-source solution providers in this marketplace

The platforms under discussion have been serving universities, business, industry, economic development professionals, and the research community for more than two decades. The Forum provides opportunities for attendees to:

• Learn about the variety of platforms and use cases
• Understand best practices for starting and managing a platform that meets their needs
• Share ideas and information about current uses from across the community
• Chart the need for platform features that support emerging use cases
• Learn strategies for enhancing stakeholder engagement

Attendees also will learn about the economic development impacts of expert finding on the regional, state, national, and global levels.

Within an academic institution, expert finding and research information platforms can support diverse faculty, student, and administrative needs, including student advising and decision making driving retention and graduation; faculty success through collaborative team-building and mentoring arrangements; promotion and tenure processes; institutional reporting for accreditation and other needs; and marketing and news dissemination.

Outside academia, the platforms can be extremely important in supporting economic development, advancing cross-unit collaboration, and promoting discovery and innovation. The platforms can also gather, manage, and publish searchable information about equipment/resources/facilities associated with expertise.

The Forum also offers the opportunity for stakeholders to explore establishing a new professional organization to provide leadership and ongoing events supporting:

• Community and system building
• Development of best practices
• Value proposition and sustainability
• Evolving platforms and applications

Attendee Profile

Organizers expect 100 to 150 attendees—primarily faculty, researchers, librarians, and administrators from major research institutions and economic development organizations throughout the nation and world.

• Expert finder and research information management system administrators
• Librarians and research impact professionals and administrators of institutional repositories
• Higher education administrators, e.g., corporate and government relations, outreach and engagement professionals, institutional marketing, institutional research/competitive intelligence, etc.
• Expert finder system platform providers
• Business and industry academic partners
• Economic development professionals
• Researchers studying research information management systems
• Research commercialization administrators
• Institutional users of other platforms such as ResearchGate, Google Scholar.
• Systems developers, web developers
• Journal publishers and editors
• Government partners such PubMed, National Labs, Federal Agencies, and other grant-making agencies, e.g., private foundations

Sponsor Benefit	Gold = $5,000	Silver = $2,500
Advertisement in online forum program webpage
Presentation after keynote speaker (10 minutes)
Presentation after a program session (5 minutes)
Opportunity to moderate a session
Logo with link on forum website footer
Acknowledgement in forum opening remarks
Exhibit table in conference meeting room
Complimentary forum registrations (meals included)	2	1
Attendees' email addresses (2 weeks before forum and after the forum)
Logo on promotional emails sent to prospective attendees and registrants (up to 10 mailings)
Logo displayed during the breaks and between sessions

Opportunity	Number Available	Cost	Details
Sponsor a breakfast	2	$2,000	Sponsor a breakfast: Your logo will be prominently displayed. Place literature or materials in the refreshment area for attendees to pick up. Sponsorship acknowledged publicly by conference organizers.
Sponsor a lunch	2	$2,000	Sponsor a lunch: Your logo will be prominently displayed. Place literature or materials in the refreshment area for attendees to pick up. Sponsorship acknowledged publicly by conference organizers.
Sponsor a morning break	2	$1,000	Sponsor a morning refreshment break: Your logo will be prominently displayed. Place literature or materials in the refreshment area for attendees to pick up.
Sponsor an afternoon break	2	$1,000	Sponsor an afternoon refreshment break: Your logo will be prominently displayed. Place literature or materials in the refreshment area for attendees to pick up.
Forum Attendee List	1	$1,000	Available after the Forum
Sponsor a scholarship(s)	10	$500	Help make it possible for graduate students and individuals from independent colleges and universities to attend the Forum. Your support will go towards enabling their participation by subsidizing the cost of attendance. Sponsorship acknowledged publicly by conference organizers and on website.