Congress Attendance Aid Grant

The grant aims to ensure equal oppor­tun­it­ies at the 30th European Meet­ing of PhD Stu­dents in Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (EMPSEB) or the ESEB con­gress in August 2025 in Barcelona.

The grant aims to increase the attend­ance of mem­bers of groups where fin­an­cial con­straints con­trib­ute to under­rep­res­ent­a­tion (e.g. cost of child­care, high costs rel­at­ive to fund­ing for those from low-income coun­tries). The grant provides sti­pends of fin­an­cial aid to help with costs oth­er­wise borne privately due to lim­ited access to fund­ing when attend­ing one of the meet­ings men­tioned above. The sti­pend (250–750 €) will con­trib­ute to travel costs and/or expenses for care of dependents.

Please note that this grant is dis­tinct from the ESEB Con­fer­ence Travel Award, which is spe­cific­ally designed to help young research­ers who are pro­fes­sion­ally based in low income coun­tries with the travel costs to attend the meet­ing. Those from low-income coun­tries can apply for, and may be awar­ded, both grants.

DEADLINE: to be announced in autumn 2024

ELIGIBILITY

  • Applic­ants must be ESEB mem­bers. To become a mem­ber please vis­it our mem­ber­ship page.
  • Applic­a­tions can be sub­mit­ted by sci­ent­ists at any stages of their pro­fes­sion­al career (e.g., under­gradu­ate, Mas­ters and PhD stu­dents, postdocs, and lecturers).
  • Applic­ants must explain how their attend­ance will increase equal oppor­tun­it­ies at the society.
  • Applic­ants must present either an oral com­mu­nic­a­tion or a poster at the respect­ive meet­ing to be eli­gible for the award. This will be veri­fied before the reim­burse­ment, but no proof that a poster or talk is accep­ted is neces­sary at the applic­a­tion stage. Please note that being chosen for a travel award does not guar­an­tee accept­ance of a poster or talk at the conference.
  • Applic­ants must detail how they intend to use the grant. Eli­gible costs include, but are not lim­ited to: costs related to child­care or care of depend­ents, fin­an­cial con­straints related to inequal­ity (e.g. salary from low-income country).
  • The sti­pend will be paid out at a flat rate of 250 € for people in Europe, up to 500 € for people out­side Europe, and up to 750 € for people from low-income coun­tries. Except in spe­cial cir­cum­stances, funds will be trans­ferred after the con­gress, when con­firm­a­tion of attend­ance is provided.

HOW TO APPLY

The applic­a­tion should be no more than 2 pages long and include:

  • Name of the applicant
  • ESEB mem­ber­ship number
  • An explan­a­tion of how attend­ance at the meet­ing improves equal oppor­tun­it­ies at ESEB
  • An explan­a­tion of how attend­ance at the meet­ing will fur­ther the attendant’s pro­fes­sion­al goals
  • Itemised budget
  • CV

Please sub­mit the applic­a­tion as a single PDF file by email to Ute Friedrich at the ESEB office (office@eseb.org; sub­ject: CAA grant 2025) and take care to lim­it the size of attach­ments (total < 10 MB) in any one email.

We will acknow­ledge receipt of all applic­a­tions with­in a week. If you have not received our con­firm­a­tion by then, please con­tact the ESEB office again!