AETE Student Travel Grant

The board of the AETE recognizes that presenting research at conferences is a vital aspect of a student’s professional, educational and research development. Furthermore, student involvement in our conferences is fundamental to further develop our research community.

To widen access to the Annual Meeting, AETE is delighted to announce the AETE Student Travel Grant. This grant will make a partial financial contribution to student presenters attending our annual international conference, subject to available funds. The number of available grants will be announced on February 15th each year. If awarded, the student will receive the bursary after the conference using electronic money transfer. In order to maximize the number of granted awards, the precise value of the award will depend on the estimated expenses and demonstrated/perceived needs of the recipients, up to a maximum of 250€ per awardee. The award can be used to cover costs associated with travel, hotel and registration for our AETE conference.

The grant is for students wishing to present their work as a first author during one of the lecture/poster sessions at the next AETE conference. It is mandatory that the student is the first author of the abstract. To be eligible, you must:

• Be registered as a Bachelor, Master or Ph.D. student at a college or university at the time of submitting the application.
• Be a member of the AETE, or take out membership if awarded the travel grant.
  Note: conference registration fee includes one-year membership fee.
• Have submitted (as a first author) an abstract for presentation at the AETE annual conference before the Student Travel Grant deadline (May 1st each year).
  Note: Submit your travel grant application before the Student Travel Grant deadline. This is independent of the standard abstract submission date and will not be subjected to extension. Thus, if your abstract has not been received by May 1st, 11:59.59pm CET, your travel grant application will not be considered.
• Accept to present your master or PhD research project in a short oral format during the student lunch (second day of the AETE conference). Further information on formatting will be given by August 1st each year.
• Accept to write a 250 words article about your Master’s or PhD project (general aims and concept) for the Newsletter in July. You should highlight the potential practical impact of the research. This abstract shall be submitted no later than July 1st to Dr. Roger Sturmey (roger.sturmey@hyms.ac.uk). This is NOT the research abstract that is submitted to be presented orally or by poster at the Conference.

• As well as applying for the Student Travel Grant, you may also apply for the student competition. However, since the 5 student competition finalists are reimbursed for their travel costs, if you are selected as one of the 5 finalists to participate in the student competition your travel award application will be cancelled and excluded from the final selection procedure.
• Only one student per abstract can apply.
• You may only receive one AETE travel grant during your career.
• Advisors/supervisors can write only one recommendation letter per conference per submission round. 

THE LETTER OF SUPPORT
A letter on official letterhead from your supervisor (or the chair of the department) is mandatory. This letter should contain a statement of the supervisor by declaring you are a bachelor, master or PhD student under his/her supervision. It must also state that the student requires support to attend the conference, and that without award, the student will be unable to attend the meeting. The letter must be in the form of a pdf, and it must be provided to the student to attach to his or her application.
If we receive recommendation letters for multiple students from the same research group, we will reject all submissions from that group.

THE MOTIVATION LETTER
You must write a letter stating why you’re applying for this travel grant. Also, in the letter you must declare that you will write a short text for the July Newsletter and will take part in the Travel Grant oral presentation program during the student lunch at our AETE conference.
This letter has to be signed by you and your supervisor. Provide full names and full affiliation details.

Each application MUST BE APPROPRIATELY SUBMITTED IN PDF FORMAT (ONE FILE ONLY). Incomplete, poorly assembled or late applications will not be considered. Applications should be submitted electronically via email to studentTG@AETE.eu no later than May 1st of the year you are applying for.

THE OUTCOME OF THE EVALUATION PROCESS
Within two weeks after the submission deadline, applicants will be notified that their application meets eligibility requirements and that your submitted file is complete. If it does not, your application will be excluded from further processing.

FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF YOUR APPLICATION
A provisionally accepted application becomes a fully accepted application once the abstract submitted by the student is peer-reviewed and accepted for the AETE conference. The applicant will receive an e-mail (Conftool system) notifying the acceptance or rejection of the abstract by mid-June.

SELECTION PROCEDURE
Once all applications are judged to be eligible and abstracts have been accepted, awards will be made by random ballot. The ballot will be filmed and the names of the awardees will be announced on our website.

NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE
Awardees will be contacted by email before June 20th of the year you are applying for. Payment of the travel award will be after the AETE conference (September) if awardees fully met all the requirements as listed above.