Financial support

ECA individual travel grant for students participating in the ECM meetings

The European Crystallographic Association will distribute travel grants among the particpating students, to encourage the participation of a large diversity of young researchers. The deadline for application is 15th of April of the year of the corresponding European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM). The students who apply should satisfy the following criteria:

  1. The student should be under 35.
  2. The student should belong to the ECA “region”, i.e. Europe, Africa and Asian countries bordering Europe.
  3. The student should be an individual member of the ECA. How to become an individual member is stated on the webpage http://ecanews.org/about-eca/membership/individual-members/
  4. The student should be registered in the IUCr World Directory of Crystallographers. It can be found at http://www.iucr.org/people/wdc.
  5. The student should be the presenting author of a submitted abstract.

The application, incorporating a submitted abstract and a motivation letter (use template Application-form-ECA-travel-grant), should be submitted in electronic form (as word document) together with a support letter from supervisor (free format, max. one page) to the ECA grants officer with a copy to the ECA secretary.

Applications will be evaluated and ranked soon after the deadline by three members the ECA executive committee : the president, the treasurer and the grants officer, based primarily on scientific excellence, but considering also geographical distribution and gender balance. Travel grants amount to about 250 euro.

As a recipient, you should within 3 months after the meeting submit a short report (in Word format, use template Report-ECA-travel-grant) summarizing your impressions and experiences. A picture of yourself at your poster is appreciated! These reports will be posted on the ECA travel grants web page.

The ECA Scholarship Fund

The ECA is aware of the general economic climate and that this might be presenting hardship to crystallographic colleagues at all stages of their careers causing difficulty to attend an ECM. Thus we launch this call for donations from those that can help other colleagues to attend the ECMs by contributing to their costs.

Please contact the ECA Treasurer to submit your donations or go directly to the donate button below.


Donate Button with Credit Cards

Applications for support from this Fund will be considered once per year, deadline 31st March of that year of the ECM. A one page statement of need and a 1 page summary cv should be sent to the ECA grants officer with a copy to the ECA secretary.

Guidelines:

  • Awards will not be for more than 50% of the estimated total costs of economy travel, economy accommodation and ECM registration fee. Receipts for expenses will be required.
  • Not more than one award will be made to a person in a ten year period.
  • Persons under the age of 35 years are to apply to the ECM Bursary Fund, not this Scholarship Fund.
  • For any one ECM there should not be more than one application per Laboratory.
  • An ECA Scholarship Fund awardee must have been an ECA Individual Member for at least 3 years at the date of the ECM for which the scholarship is requested, and be registered in the IUCr World Directory of Crystallographers at the date of application.
  • A Sub-Committee of the ECA Executive Committee will decide the selection of the Awardees.
  • Reimbursement payments will be made to the awardees by the ECA Treasurer at the ECM i.e. upon attendance of the awardee at the relevant ECM. Exceptions to this can be considered on appeal to the ECA Secretary i.e. to request an advance payment.

ECA financial support to schools and meetings

The ECA sponsors symposia, schools, workshops and conferences on topics relevant to crystallography within the European cooperation..

The following rules, accepted by vote by the ECA Council in Darmstadt (August 2011), apply:

  1. At least 5000 € to be distributed each year.
  2. Grants in the range of 500-2000 €.
  3. Application from the organizers must be received before
    – February 1st for events taking place after August 1st the same year.
    –     August 1st for events taking place after February 1st the following year.
  4. Dates of conferences and schools must be outside of a blackout period of ± 2 weeks around the ECM’s, ECS’s and IUCr Congresses.
  5. There should be an official bank account or sub-account opened for the conference or its organizing institution, to which the support will be transferred.
  6. The ECA funds should be used to support young scientists (under 35) from the ECA “region”, with priority to less developed countries.
  7. Individual Membership of the ECA is a condition of the award for a student bursary from the ECA at schools or workshops. At conferences/workshops an application for financial support should only be considered if the applicant is also registered in the IUCr World Directory of Crystallographers.
  8. There should be a reasonable geographical distribution of the fellowships. In particular, the organizing country should not dominate the list of awards. National meetings should use the grant to attract young participants from other countries. The gender balance should also be taken into consideration.
  9. An applicant should be presenting author of an accepted abstract (applies to conferences, symposia and other meetings, whose main purpose is the presentation of scientific results).
  10. The ECA support should be acknowledged in the conference materials, web pages, and announcements. Where possible, the ECA logo should accompany the acknowledgment. Participants should be aware of being recipient of an ECA bursary.
  11. Within 3 months after the meeting, the organizers should provide for the Executive Committee a short report indicating how the ECA support was used to help young participants (including a list of their names and email addresses) and for inclusion in ECA News a brief statement summarizing the event.

The application (use template Application-form-ECA-school-support), should be submitted in electronic form (as Word document) to the ECA grants officer with a copy to the ECA secretary. Applications are evaluated by the ECA executive committee in February and August each year.

A report (as Word document, use template Report-ECA-school-support) is expected within 3 months of the meeting (see 11 above) and will be posted on the ECA meeting grants web page.

Reports from schools that were supported from 2017 to 2020.

Schools receiving support in 2021.