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Call for ITC Conference Grant Applications CA18134 "G-BIKE"
Call Number 01

1st call for ITC (Inclusiveness Target Countries) conference grant applications for missions occurring before – April 2020.

All activities must occur in their entirety within the dates specified above.

Purpose
ITC Conference Grants are aimed at supporting PhD students and ECI¹ from Participating ITC² to attend international science and technology related conferences not specifically organized by the COST Action..

Eligibility criteria (COST Vademecum Section 9.1)

1. Conference Grants are exclusively reserved for PhD students, PhD candidates and ECIs with a primary affiliation in an institution located in an ITC participating in the Action.

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 Cost Vademecum Section 10).

3. The participation of each applicant must be pre-approved by the Management Committee of the Action.

Additionally:

Priority will be given to:
• Oral presentations over poster presentations,
• Applications related to currently ongoing Working Groups, submitted by the WG members, and endorsed by the WG leaders.
• The submission for ITC conference grants should be made after the abstract has been approved by the conference organizers.
• In order to ensure proper distribution of funds we never send more than one person to a single conference.

1 Early Career Investigator, a researcher who received her/his PhD title within the last 8 years of the date of the first involvement in CA18134.

2 Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, North Macedonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey

How to apply?
Carefully read the funding rules detailed in Section 9 of the COST Vademecum. This document is available at: https://www.cost.eu/funding/how-to-get-funding/documents-and-guidelines/. To apply for a Conference Grant within the G-BIKE Cost Action (CA18134), please send the following documents (in a single pdf file) to ITC Conference Grants Manager Joachim.Mergeay@inbo.be before each deadline:

1. filled ITC application form in the eCOST portal (https://e-services.cost.eu/, max. 2 pages) 2. the Applicant’s CV (summary), including recent publications 3. full paper (if available) 4. the most recent conference booklet or leaflet / conference program (if available) 5. the invitation from the organizers (if available)

Application process
The ITC conference grant evaluation procedure has been approved through e-vote by COST RESTORE Management Committee Members. The procedure is as follows:

• ITC Conference Grants Call is launched by G-BIKE ITC Conference Grants Manager (stating all relevant details of application and deadline).
• All applicants must register for an e-COST profile at https://e-services.cost.eu/ - adding their bank account details to their profile.
• Applicants are encouraged to contact respective working group(s) leader(s) prior to submitting their application to ensure that the planned presentation agrees with the objectives of this action.
• Within a grant period, there are three-monthly review procedures. For the current call, DEADLINES are 30/07/2019, 30/10/2019.

ITC calls are currently in stand-by to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Applications received prior to each of these dates will be evaluated within seven days following the upcoming deadline.

• After the deadline, a Committee of Reviewers (the same in charge of evaluating Short Term Scientific Missions, STSMs) pre-evaluates all submitted applications in the context of their compatibility and relevance with the topic of the Action. The committee also checks if the applicant is a PhD candidate or ECI, and if they represent an ITC country.
• The result of the pre-approval is the ranking list. The actual number of applications to be funded is determined by the available budget. The ITC Conference Grants Manager confirms available funding with the Grant Manager, and informs successful Applicants about the result of the pre- approval.
• The Applicants that were successful during the pre-approval must then formally submit their applications via e-COST.
• Action Chair approves the applications that has been successfully pre-approved.
• The Grant Holder sends the grant letter.

Pre-evaluation
Your application will be first evaluated by the Editorial Committee and by the ITC Conference Grants Manager. Then, if the remaining budget allows to provide funding it will be submitted for approval by the Action Chair. Priority will be given to applications that support the objectives of the Working Packages. Please consult the G-BIKE website and the G-BIKE Memorandum of Understanding for details.

It is expected that each ITC grantee will send a copy of their presentation/poster/paper to the ITC Conference Grants Manager of the G-BIKE Action. It will be then disseminated using the official G-BIKE website, social media, etc. The material must be submitted to the ITC Conference Grants Manager by email shortly after the conference. Photographic material from the conference (e.g. the Applicant with the G-BIKE logo in background) will be requested.

With any further questions, please contact ITC Conference Grants Manager Joachim.mergeay@inbo.be.