Call for ITC Conference Grants

Objectives

The Inclusiveness Target Countries Conference Grants (ITC Conference Grants) are aimed at supporting Young Researchers and Innovators (YRI) < 40 years old from Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC)¹ to attend international scientific meetings related to the topic of the Action. EpiLipidNET cannot organize these conferences.

¹ ITC currently participating in CA19105: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus,Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey.

Applicants from universities maintained by public interest trusts established under Hungarian Act IX of 2021 and concerned by the Council Implementation Decision 2022/2056 are allowed to participate in COST activities without receiving financial support from the COST Association (either grants or reimbursements). Individuals from the flagged institutions can apply to get funded via the Guarantee Fund established by the Hungarian government. For more information please see the Communication on issuing commitment letters for model-changing higher education institutions to participate in Horizon Europe programme and in science & RDI funding programmes of the EU under direct and indirect management.

Eligibility criteria

• ITC Conference Grants are exclusively reserved for PhD students and YRIs < 40 y.o. engaged in an official research program and primarily affiliated in an institution located in an ITC.
• The applicants are obliged to have an oral or poster presentation at the conference, and must be listed in the official program of the event.
• The main subject of the presentation must be on the topic of the Action.
• An acknowledgement to the COST Action needs to be provided, as follows: “This publication is based upon work from COST Action 19105-Pan-European Network in Lipidomics and EpiLipidomics (EpiLipidNET) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)”.
• Attendance at European meetings is preferred. However, conferences held elsewhere can also be considered. In addition, the Core Group of Management Committee (MC) may indicate meetings of particular interest for the Action, for which the representation from ITC will be encouraged.

When to apply

How to apply

Before starting your application, you must carefully read the funding rules detailed in Annex 2 of the Annotated rules for COST Actions and the ITC CG user guide.

• Applications are made through an online form available on the e-COST system, where the applicant must create a profile https://e-services.cost.eu.
• After registration, applicants can initiate the application in the Grant application section, pressing ‘+ Apply for grant’ and selecting ITC Conference grant
• The applicant creates the application, providing applicant details, conference details (the end day must be before the 10^th of October 2024), bank details, and information about the financial support requested.
• The applicant downloads and fills out the ITC Conference Grant application form, providing also a short description of your involvement in the Action
• Submit to the e-COST platform application form along with CV, the letter which confirms acceptance³ of your presentation, and copy of the submitted abstract.

The application should be submitted at least 30 days before the conference start date. The notification from e-COST will be received to confirm the submission.

³ Grant applications can be submitted before receiving the letter of abstract acceptance. If so, the applicant provides a written statement that the letter of acceptance will be delivered to the ITC CG Coordinator immediately upon arrival. The final decision on accepting or rejecting the grant application will be made only when the letter of acceptance is received.

Evaluation

The Action^’s MC delegated the evaluation of the ITC Conference Grant applications to the ITC Grant Committee composed of the ITC Grant Coordinator Snjezana Petrovic (snjezana.petrovic@imi.bg.ac.rs), and 8 ITC Grant Committee members:

Dr Lejla Alic (lejla.alic@mf.unsa.ba) – Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Dr Maria Balazova (maria.balazova@savba.sk) – Slovakia,

Dr Thierry Durand (thierry.durand@umontpellier.fr) – France,

Prof Toni Petan (toni.petan@ijs.si) – Slovenia,

Prof Yesim Oztas (yoztas@hacettepe.edu.tr) – Turkey,

Dr Felisa Rey (felisa.rey@ua.pt) – Portugal,

Dr Guillermo Quintas  (gquintas@leitat.org) – Spain,

Dr Sandrina Pereira ( sandrina.pereira@ua.pt) – Portugal.

The evaluation of each received ITC Conference Grant application will be performed by the ITC Conference Grant Coordinator and at least two other ITC Conference Grant Committee members. Final decision will be made by the Grant Awarding Coordinator (joanna.godzien@umb.edu.pl).

Application evaluation criteria:

• Curriculum vitae of the applicant (0-3 points)
• Relevance to the CA19105 goals (0-3 points)
• International conference in a country other than the applicant’s country (2 points)
• International conference in the applicant’s country (1 point)
• Oral presentation (2 points)
• Poster presentation (1 point)

Financial support

The ITC Conference Grant is a fixed financial contribution decided by the Action MC or Core Group on proposal of the evaluators and should reflect the duration and location of the Conference and the actual conference fee. The ITC Conference Grant provides contribution for travelling, accommodation, and subsistence expenses, registration fee, printing of scientific poster and overall effort, and do not necessarily cover all the expenses related to participating in a selected meeting.

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

• Up to 2 000 EUR per grant for face-to-face conferences OR
• Up to 500 EUR for virtual conferences

To facilitate justification of the requested amount, please detail your expenses in the ITC budget template and submit it along with other documents on the e-COST platform. Please note that double funding is not permitted.

The applicant needs to provide documentary evidence of the conference fee amount.

Reporting and payment

The ITC Conference Grant grantee has 30 calendar days from the end date of the mission to submit a scientific report (template at: http://www.cost.eu/ITC conference grant report template ). The Certificate of Participation or copy of the program showing the applicant’s contribution, should be provided as an annex. The submission of the report is mandatory, failure to comply will result in cancellation of the Grant.

Checklist – before Reimbursement of ITC Conference Grants

To be uploaded to e-COST:

Before the conference

1. Application form (template available on e-COST)
2. Copy of the abstract of the accepted oral or poster presentation
3. Acceptance letter from the conference organizers
4. Budget

After the conference:

1. Report (template available on e-COST)
2. Copy of your poster or oral presentation
3. Conference program or book of abstracts proving the grantee’s contribution
4. Certificate of Attendance
5. Invoice of the conference fee
6. Confirmation of bank transfer of the fee’s payment

Payment of the grant is subject to approval of the report by the ITC Conference Grant Coordinator.

Others

The detailed regulations and procedures are available in the Annotated Rules for COST Actions.

The list of Conferences

Here are proposed some conferences in the thematic domain of the CA19105. It needs to be stressed, that ITC Conferences Grant applications are not limited to that list, the Applications which do not relate to the listed conferences will also be considered.

1. International Conference on Lipid Science and Molecular Medicine – (ICLSMM-24) 12 -13 January 2024, Copenhagen, Denmark
2. Lipids & Cosmetics, 24 – 25 January 2024, Bordeaux, France, hybrid event
3. ICLST 2024: 18th International Conference on Lipid Science and Technology, 25 – 26 January 2024, Paris, France
4. 4^th International Symposium on Microbial Lipids, 11 – 14 February 2024, Graz, Austria
5. International Conference on Lipids and Lipid Chemistry ICLLC, 29 – 30 March 2024, Brussels, Belgium
6. Gordon Research Conference 2024, Toward Functional Lipidomics: Structure Elucidation, Quantification, Data Integration and Clinical Translation, 5 – 10 May 2024, Lucca, Italy
7. ICLSMB 2024: 18^th International Conference on Lipid Science and Molecular Biology 23 – 24 May 2024, Barcelona, Spain
8. 92^nd European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) Congress, 26 – 29 May 2024, Lyon, France
9. EMBO, FEBS Advanced Lecture Course: Membranes, Lipids and Proteins in Organelle Biogenesis, 26 May – 1 June 2024, Island of Spetses, Greece
10. Yeast Lipid Conference 2024, 29 – 31 May 2024, Homburg, Germany
11. 32^nd Nordic Lipid Forum Symposium 2024, 9 – 12 June 2024, Turku, Finland
12. Metabolomics 2024, 16 – 20 June 2024, Osaka, Japan
13. ISAP 24, the 8^th Congress of the International Society for Applied Phycology , Alfândega Congress Center, Porto from 18-22 June 2024 8
14. 2024 Membro da Comisão organizadora  do 19TH GERLI LIPIDOMICS MEETING AT THE END OF THE WORLD, LIPIDS, FROM SEA TO FORK, Lieu: Brest-Plouzané, France, 23-26 septembre 2024from 18-22 June 2024
15. Heart Congress 2024, 20 – 22 June 2024, Paris, France, hybrid event
16. 48^th FEBS Congress, Mining biochemistry for human health and well-being, 29 June – 3 July 2024, Milano, Italy
17. 5^th International Symposium on Lipid Oxidation and Antioxidants, 08 – 10 July 2024, Bologna, Italy
18. FASEB Science Research Conference (SRC), Lipid Droplets: From Mechanisms to Disease, 21 – 25 July 2024, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
19. Kern Lipid Conference 2024, Mitochondria and Lipids in Metabolic Disease, 12 – 14 August 2024, Snowmass, Washington, USA
20. 4^th Nordic Metabolomics Conference, 26 – 28 August 2024, Turku, Finland
21. 9^th Lipidomics Forum, 1 – 3 September 2024, Borstel, Germany