Congress Attendance Aid Grant

Graphic CAA grant 2026

The Con­gress Attend­ance Aid (CAA) Grant is offered by ESEB to pro­mote equal par­ti­cip­a­tion, diversity, and access­ib­il­ity at the 31st European Meet­ing of PhD Stu­dents in Evol­u­tion­ary Bio­logy (EMPSEB), to be held in June 2025 in Ober­wiesenth­al, Germany.

The CAA Grant is spe­cific­ally designed to reduce private fin­an­cial bar­ri­ers linked to struc­tur­al under­rep­res­ent­a­tion, caring respons­ib­il­it­ies, access­ib­il­ity needs, and oth­er equal­ity-related con­straints that may oth­er­wise pre­vent research­ers from attend­ing the meet­ing. It primar­ily, though not exclus­ively, supports:

  • Care­giv­ing research­ers with depend­ent-care responsibilities
  • Research­ers from under­rep­res­en­ted social, eth­nic, racial, and cul­tur­al backgrounds
  • LGBTQ+ research­ers
  • Research­ers facing addi­tion­al costs linked to dis­ab­il­ity, access­ib­il­ity, or social inequality

This grant oper­ates under the prin­ciple of pos­it­ive dis­crim­in­a­tion to foster equity and is not based on coun­try of employ­ment or gen­er­al travel costs.

The grant is awar­ded as a flat-rate sti­pend, with €250 for par­ti­cipants trav­el­ling from with­in Europe and €500 for par­ti­cipants trav­el­ling from out­side Europe, to sup­port addi­tion­al private costs arising from per­son­al, fam­ily, access­ib­il­ity, or inequal­ity-related respons­ib­il­it­ies, includ­ing but not lim­ited to:

  • Child­care dur­ing the meet­ing (on-site or at home)
  • Addi­tion­al depend­ent care (eld­erly, dis­abled, or oth­er dependents)
  • Extra travel costs for care­givers (e.g., part­ners, babysitters)
  • Access­ib­il­ity-related expenses
  • Oth­er jus­ti­fied equal­ity-related expenses

High­er amounts may be awar­ded in cases of long-dis­tance travel or lim­ited access to insti­tu­tion­al funding.

The sti­pend is paid as a flat-rate reim­burse­ment after the meet­ing, once attend­ance and present­a­tion are confirmed.

Import­ant Dis­tinc­tion from the ESEB Con­fer­ence Travel Award

The CAA Grant is fun­da­ment­ally dif­fer­ent from the ESEB Con­fer­ence Travel Award. The CAA Grant addresses equality‑, care‑, and access­ib­il­ity-related fin­an­cial bar­ri­ers, while the Travel Award sup­ports gen­er­al travel costs for research­ers based in low-income coun­tries. Applic­ants based in low-income coun­tries who also face equal­ity- or care-related bar­ri­ers may apply for both grants.

DEADLINE: 01 Feb­ru­ary 2026

ELIGIBILITY

  • Applic­ants must be cur­rent ESEB mem­bers (to become an ESEB mem­ber, please vis­it our mem­ber­ship page).
  • Applic­ants must expli­citly explain how their attend­ance will increase equal oppor­tun­it­ies at ESEB.
  • Applic­ants must present either an oral com­mu­nic­a­tion or a poster at EMPSEB to be eli­gible for the award. This will be veri­fied before reim­burse­ment; how­ever, proof of accept­ance is not required at the applic­a­tion stage. Please note that being selec­ted 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: depend­ent care, access­ib­il­ity and dis­ab­il­ity-related expenses, addi­tion­al travel or accom­mod­a­tion costs arising from struc­tur­al inequal­ity, and oth­er jus­ti­fied equal­ity-related expenses.
  • The sti­pend will be paid after the meet­ing, upon con­firm­a­tion of attend­ance and presentation.

HOW TO APPLY

The applic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted as a single doc­u­ment of no more than 2 pages in total, and must include all of the fol­low­ing with­in this page limit:

  • Applicant’s full name
  • ESEB mem­ber­ship number
  • Explan­a­tion of how their par­ti­cip­a­tion enhances equal oppor­tun­it­ies at ESEB
  • Explan­a­tion of how attend­ance sup­ports their pro­fes­sion­al development
  • Itemised budget (in Euro)
  • CV

Please sub­mit a single PDF file by email to Ute Friedrich at the ESEB office (office@eseb.org; sub­ject line: CAA grant 2026). The total size of attach­ments must not exceed 10 MB per 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.