Travel Grants

Overview

4S administers travel funds to support the participation of students and other low-income scholars in its annual meetings. Funding for 2023 comes from the National Science Foundation. Awards are available for travel expenses only, not for food or lodging. The amount of each award will be determined once all applications have been received. In previous years, individual awards were in the range of $150-400, but can be up to $700 in some circumstances, subject to the total amount of 4S travel funds available.

Note that the limited funds available do not allow us to award travel grants to all applicants. The funding decision will be based on the following criteria:

Quality: Is the abstract of appropriate quality for presentation at 4S?
Conference participation beyond paper presentation: Are you organizing a panel or additional meeting, volunteering for additional work, etc.?
Relevance: If a graduate student, is the student enrolled in a graduate program? Is 4S the right place for this paper?
Completeness: Is the application complete?
Availability of alternative funds: Does your home institution provide travel funds, etc.?
Prior travel grants received: Did you receive 4S funding in the previous year?
Diversity: 4S is committed to inclusion and participation of under-represented groups and seeks each year to provide funding to these students.

Procedures

Applications open after abstract acceptance notices are sent.

To qualify for a travel award, an applicant must be a student or other low-income scholar presenting a paper at the 4S Annual Meeting and a member of 4S. In cases of co-authorship, no more than one award will be granted for each paper presented.

Applicants can expect to hear the outcome around the time of the early registration deadline.

Reimbursements are distributed after the meeting. Save your receipts to submit via the reimbursement form.