The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) helps students and young scientists with outstanding work in alternative approaches attend a high-profile scientific event.
Every year, several high-profile international meetings bring together world-class scientists working on the development and acceptance of 3R alternatives to animal testing (replacement, reduction or refinement). Costs linked to participation may prevent students with promising work or young scientists early in their careers from attending these events. Therefore, EPAA partners happily sponsor 3Rs student grants to help students and young scientists participate in such events.
A jury will assess the applications and propose a list of selected candidates to the EPAA Steering Committee. The jury will be composed of 4 judging members (two from the industry and two from the European Commission).
For each of the eligible events, a lump sum of €1500 is available. Two levels of grants are offered by the EPAA partners: 1 half grant and 1 full grant.
- A half grant reimburses the student/young scientist for event registration fees well as travel and accommodation fees, based on the expense receipts up to a maximum of €500.
- A full grant reimburses the student/young scientist for event registration fees as well as travel and accommodation fees, up to a maximum total amount of €1000, based on the expense receipts.
Eligibility
Eligibility criteria for both students and events are defined as follows. Applications falling out of this scope will not be accepted.
Students
1) Applicants have to be based (i.e. studying) in one of the 27 EU countries or the UK. Citizenship may be from any country (i.e. also outside of the EU).
2) Applicants must be graduated (BSc / First cycle completed with at least 180 ECTS credits) when applying and should not have a doctoral degree.
3) Applicants must still be considered as full-time students or young scientists (≤ 35 years old) when applying.
4) Young scientists employed by industry are not eligible
5) No funding or reimbursement by another entity for the same student and event is allowed.
Events
Selected high-profile scientific meetings are eligible for the EPAA 3Rs student grants. For 2022, the following events are open for application.
| Event | Deadline for application |
|---|---|
| FELASA 2022 (13 – 16 June) | 2 May 2022 |
| XVIth International Congress of Toxicology (ICT) 2022 (18 – 21 September) | 4 July 2022 |
| EUSAAT Congress 2022 (26 – 28 September) | 11 July 2022 |
| ESTIV Conference 2022 (21 – 25 November) | 15 July 2022 |
Application and selection process
The application process is as follows.
- Applications must be sent to EPAA functional mailbox (grow%E2%80%90epaa
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow‐epaa[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)) by midnight of the day indicated above. - The Award will be granted provided an abstract is accepted for an oral presentation. At the sole discretion of the Jury, in exceptional cases work presented in a poster format will be eligible, too. EPAA visibility must be guaranteed by including a clear acknowledgement of EPAA’s support in the presentation/poster.
The jury will base its selection on the following documents to be provided by the applicant
- abstract submitted for one of the selected events
- detailed CV of the applicant with a list of publications (if any)
- cover letter describing why the work described in the abstract is important for the 3Rs and why it should be supported by the EPAA grant
- recommendation letter from a professor/supervisor also confirming the applicant is a full-time student
- proof of acceptance to the event (i.e. invitation to the event or confirmation mail)
Enquiries should be directed to grow%E2%80%90epaaec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow‐epaa[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
EPAA recognition
The winner of the grant will give recognition to the EPAA in their presentation/poster. The winner must provide proof, clearly showing them giving recognition to EPAA (a photo or a video with an oral statement).
The winner of the grant also accepts that the EPAA may publish the abstracts of the presentation and/or the poster on its website (after the event), to promote and disseminate the research. Finally, the winner should provide a summary report of the event and how they benefitted from participation.