Every year, a number of 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 at the beginning of their career from attending these events. The EPAA partners are therefore happy to sponsor the 3Rs Student Grants to facilitate the participation of students and young scientists 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 members (two from the Industry and two from the European Commission) who will judge.
This year, a full grant of €1000 and a half grant of €500 are available for ESTIV 2024, EUSAAT 2024 and EUROTOX 2024.
All grants cover the reimbursement of the event registration fees for the student/young scientist as well as travel and accommodation fees, on the basis of the expense receipts. The payment will be made after the event.
Eligibility for both students and events are defined as follows. Applications that do not meet this criteria will not be accepted.
Students
- Applicants have to be based (i.e. studying) in one of the 27 EU countries or the UK. Citizenship maybe from any country(i.e. also outside of the EU).
- Applicants must have already graduated (a BSc or first cycle completed with at least 180 ECTS credits) when applying. You should not have a doctoral degree.
- Applicants must still be considered as full-time students or young scientists (less than 35 years old) when applying.
- Young scientists employed by an industry are not eligible
- No funding or reimbursement by another entity for the same student and event is allowed.
Events
For 2024, the following events below are open for application.
| Event | Application deadline |
| ESTIV 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic (3-6 June 2024) | 15/04/2024 |
| EUROTOX 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark (8-11 September 2024) | 17/06/2024 |
| EUSAAT 2024 in Linz, Austria (18-20 September 2024) | 10/07/2024 |
Please send your application to grow-epaa
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow-epaa[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu) by midnight of the application deadline for the event you would like to attend.
The grant will be granted provided you submit an abstract that is accepted for an oral presentation. At the sole discretion of the jury, work presented in the format of a poster format will be eligible in exceptional cases. The EPAA’s support must be acknowledged in the presentation/poster and be clearly visible.
The jury will make their selected based on the following document provided by the applicant:
- Abstract submitted for one of the selected events
- Detailed CV of the applicant with 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 which also confirms that the applicant is a full-time student
- Proof of acceptance to the event (i.e. an invitation to the event or confirmation email)
If you have any questions, please email grow%E2%80%90epaaec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow-epaa[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).
The winner of the grant accepts to recognise the EPAA in their presentation/poster. The winner is required to provide proof which clearly shows him or her giving recognition (e.g. 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 / poster on its website after the event, in order to promote and disseminate their research. A short summary report of the event and how the student benefited from the participation needs to be provided.
The EPAA is a public-private Partnership across 7 industry sectors and between European Commission and Industry stakeholders. Launched in 2005, it brings together 38 companies, 9 European trade federations and 5 Directorates-General of the European Commission.
Further information is available on our home page and in our 2023 annual report.