Conference Grants

Call for Applications is NOW OPEN

Dear SARCOS participants,

On behalf of our ITC CG Coordinator, Dr. Mercedes Sánchez Moreno, we are pleased to announce that the period for applying for an ITC Conference Grant is now open.

In the following guides you will find the general rules for ITC CG and indications for preparing applications. All of them can be downloaded from https://www.cost.eu/funding/how-to-get-funding/documents-and-guidelines/:

- COST Vademecum (there's a new version, May 2020)
- Guidelines for Action management, monitoring and assessment
- Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC) conference grants user guide
According to the COST Vademecum, Conference Grants are aimed at supporting  ECI and PhD students from Participating ITC to attend international science and technology related conferences on the topic of the Action that are not organised by the COST Action.

The following eligibility criteria apply:

1. Conference Grants are exclusively reserved for PhD students and ECI's with a primary affiliation in an institution located in an ITC.
2. The applicant must make an oral/poster presentation at the conference in question and must be listed in the official event/conference programme. The main subject of the oral presentation / poster presentation / speech at the approved conference must be on the topic of the Action and must acknowledge COST (see Section 11).
3. The participation of each applicant must be pre-approved by the Action MC. Attendance at European conferences is preferred. However, conferences held elsewhere can also be considered.

Please note that the ITC are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the North Republic of Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey.

The call will have the following characteristics:

1. Applications can be submitted from now until further notice (when the allocated budget is finished).
2. They will be treated on a first come, first served basis, after checking the suitability of the applicant and the suitability of the conference.
3. The selected conference will have to take place before March 1st, 2021, one month before the end of the Action (March 30th, 2021). In the case the conference takes place during the second half of February, grantees are kindly requested to submit their scientific report in 2 weeks (instead of the usual 30 days). Otherwise we would not have enough time to process the payment of their grant and our commitment to submit our Financial Report to COST when requested will be endangered.
4. // COVID-19 //Given the current pandemic, applicants are requested to accept the responsibilities of any potential problems with the traveling restrictions they might face due to the global COVID-19 situation. They will be requested to sign the attached written document ("Acceptance of responsibilities ITC CG") to make this commitment official. 
5. Please send also 2-4 pictures of you during the conference, so we can publish them in the webpage of the Action (https://www.sarcos.eng.cam.ac.uk/), together with the summary of your proposal. The scientific report will be published in the members area.
6. The conference program and the book of abstracts including the applicant's name and contribution should be provided.
7. Grantees who have never been reimbursed by the UPV should send Pepa (ghmanager.upv@gmail.com) the form "Dates_address_bank" filled in and signed, together with a copy of their passport, in order to be included in the UPV database as a third party for making the payment. In the case the grantee requests the grant in a Spanish bank account, please fill in the form "Datos_Tercero". Moreover, those with a Spanish DNI, should provide this instead of their passport. The transfer of the grant should be done, preferably, to the grantee's personal bank account. If this is totally impossible, please let Pepa know and she will inform you about how to proceed.
8. Submitting an application implies the acceptance of all the above mentioned conditions and characteristics of the call.

Financial Support

A Conference Grant is a fixed financial contribution which takes into consideration the budget request of the applicant and the outcome of the evaluation of the application by the delegated person(s). Conference Grants do not necessarily cover all of the expenses related to participating in a given conference. A Conference Grant is a contribution to the overall travel, accommodation and meal expenses of the selected Grantee.

The calculation of the financial contribution for each Conference Grant must respect the following criteria:

• Up to a maximum of EUR 2500 in total can be afforded to each successful applicant;
• Up to a maximum of EUR 160 per day can be afforded for accommodation and meal expenses.
• Up to a maximum of EUR 500 can be claimed for the conference fees to be incurred by the selected Grantee.

In addition when meal and accommodation expenses are supported by the hosting institution as part of the provisions offered in their conference package, the amount for subsistence afforded to each eligible participant must be deducted from the Grant. Documentary evidence of the conference fee amount must be provided by the applicant and in kind, must be archived by the Grant Holder along with the relevant administrative documents.

Application, Approval and Payment Procedure

The entire application, approval and payment procedures are managed through the e-COST platform, and are explained in detail in the user guide.