Deadline 2021/07/02-2021/07/12 - 3Rs student grants 2021: call for submissions

The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) supports students and young scientists with outstanding work in the field of alternative approaches to 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 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.

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 covers the reimbursement of the event registration fees for the student/young scientist as well as travel and accommodation fees, based on the expense receipts up to a maximum of €500.
• A full grant covers the reimbursement of the event registration fees for the student/young scientist 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 2021, the following
events are open for application:

Application and selection process

The application process is as follows

1) Applications must be sent to EPAA functional mailbox (grow-epaaec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow-epaa[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)) by midnight of the day indicated above
2) 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 also be eligible. EPAA visibility must be guaranteed by including a clear acknowledgement of EPAA’s support in the presentation/poster.

Selection will be made by the jury based 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‐epaaec [dot] europa [dot] eu

EPAA recognition

The winner of the grant will give the EPAA recognition in their presentation/poster. The winner must provide proof, clearly showing their recognition of the EPAA (i.e. 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.