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Conference Attendance Grants

If you have any questions or comments about ASAB Conference Attendance Grants, please contact the Secretary of Grants Committee. Usually there are three application rounds per year with deadlines of 1st February for the Spring meeting, 1st June for the Summer meeting, and 1st October for the Winter meeting. For applications for more than £500 (only Developing Country Applicants; see below for eligibility criteria), the deadlines are two months earlier. Decisions will be made shortly after the closing date.

NOTE: Applicants are strongly advised to read and follow the advice available here

CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE GRANTS OVERVIEW

We at ASAB believe that our conferences work best when attended by members from all levels of academia. But we understand that attending conferences can be expensive, especially for early career scientists and those in developing countries.

To encourage attendance at ASAB conferences, we award Conference Attendance Grants of up to £500 to standard applicants, and up to £2500 to ‘Developing Country Applicants’. (Eligibility criteria for both types of applicant are given under 'ELIGIBILITY AND FUNDING (2)' below.) The award provides a contribution towards the cost of registration, accommodation, and meals, as well as the cost of travel to and from the conference. Typically, a high proportion of standard applications, and the lower tranche of developing country applications, is funded; a lower proportion of the upper tranche of developing country applications is funded. Repeat applications are typically funded at the same rate, except that previous awardees of the upper tranche are unlikely to be awarded the upper tranche again. Please Note: Conference Attendance Grants are only available for ASAB conferences.

Applications may be made to attend the conference either at the main conference venue, or at a hublet (site where people can attend to watch a streamed version of the conference). Hublets must have been agreed by ASAB by the application date, and the maximum amount that will be awarded to attend a hublet is £500 for all applicants (including Developing Country Applicants).

In addition to Conference Attendance Grants, ASAB also gives Accessibility (see here) and Childcare Grants (see here) to facilitate conference attendance. We allow applications for any combination of Accessibility, Childcare and Conference Attendance Grants for which the applicant is eligible in relation to a particular conference. (Note that the eligibility criteria for Conference Attendance Grants are more stringent than for the other two grant types.)

Eligibility AND Funding

1) Applicants must be ASAB members or have applied for membership (and subsequently complete the application process within a month of the closing date). If you are not already a member, you can apply for membership here. If you are already a member, you should check that you are up do date with your membership subscription by logging in on the ASAB Membership Website. To be eligible for a grant you either need to have applied for membership by the closing date (and subsequently complete the application process within a month of the closing date), or be a current paid-up member on the closing date.

2) Applicants must be
EITHER registered at the time of application for a higher degree or be without access to other sources of funding for conference attendance (e.g. undergraduates, unwaged postdocs)
OR a ‘Developing Country Applicant’. To be eligible as a ‘Developing Country Applicant‘ you must be BOTH a citizen of, AND employed/funded by, a Low or Middle Income country as defined by the World Bank (scroll down in the link). (The country which employs/funds you need not be the country of which you are a citizen, provided both are Low or Middle Income countries.)

3) Presentation of a paper at the conference is not a condition of eligibility, but applicants are strongly encouraged to present at least a poster (even first year PhD students may gain greatly from presenting a poster about their project and what they plan to do).

4) Funding of the first £500 (or the amount requested if this is less than £500) will be determined by the availability of ASAB funds and, if necessary, priority given to first-time applicants and those working under the theme of the conference. Additional amounts requested by Developing Country Applicants will be assessed by the same criteria, plus the likely benefit/importance to the applicant of attending the conference, the likely availability of alternative funding for the applicant, and the amount of any previous ASAB Conference Attendance Grants.

5) ASAB may reduce the amount awarded below that requested.

6) ASAB does not usually fund applications from applicants based in the Americas.

7) ASAB regrets that it is unable to accept applications from countries where UK government sanctions would prevent payment of an award (see here for information on the countries affected).

8) Funding is conditional on conference attendance. However, Developing Country awardees who fail to attend the conference due to sickness, travel-disruption or other unforeseeable circumstances will generally have non-recoverable expenses reimbursed. Other awardees who fail to attend the conference due to unforeseeable circumstances will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

9) Successful applicants will usually receive their funding after the conference and should retain all receipts and other proofs of payment in order to claim their grant.

Application Deadlines

For standard Conference Attendance grants (£500 or less) there are usually three application rounds per year with deadlines of 1st February for the Spring meeting, 1st June for the Summer meeting, and 1st October for the Winter meeting.

For applications for more than £500 (only Developing Country Applicants; see above for qualifying criteria), the deadlines are two months earlier: 1st December in the year before the meeting for the Spring meeting, 1st April for the Summer meeting, and 1st August for the Winter meeting. Applicants needing to apply for a visa ahead of travel may also apply in these earlier rounds.

Decisions will be made shortly after the closing date.

Application Format

Applicants may download the application form here and the equality and diversity monitoring form here . Applications should be saved using the file name ‘SurnameAC.docx’ and submitted to the Secretary of the Grants Committee as an email attachment. The equality and diversity monitoring form should be submitted with the file name changed to ‘SurnameED.docx’ as an attachment to the email in which the application form is submitted or to a separate email.