The U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) and the organizers of the 30th FEBS Congress and the 9th Conference of the IUBMB will cooperate to organize a travel grant program to assist the travel of top speakers to the congress from the United States and the travel of competitively selected U.S. students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as, postdoctoral fellows. The congress, which covers the broad theme of the" Protein World," will take place July 2-7, 2005 in Budapest, Hungary. This travel grant provides students and young scientists, most of whom do not have the institutional funding for such travel, an opportunity to present their research in an international forum. The travel grant program will also provide travel support for established scientists who have agreed to speak at the congress. It is estimated that the congress will attract over 3,000 students and scientists as there are approximately 4,300 pre-registrants and 2,600 final registrants.
Awards of $1,200 will be offered to 20 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows. Awards of $800 will be provided for 30 established scientists who have already been selected as speakers for the congress. The students and young scientists will be competitively selected by members of the U.S. National Committee for the IUBMB. The national committee will evaluate and rank the applications based on scientific merit of the submitted abstract. Special attention will be paid to the inclusion of women and grantees from traditionally underrepresented groups. An announcement of the travel grant program will be placed in society newsletters and web pages in April 2005.
Intellectual Merit: In additional to the plenary lectures and symposia, the congress organizers have put together an intensive public awareness program to help convey the main themes and congress lecturers to the public. They have also created a "Science is Fun" program to provide novel ways of presenting scientific information. International congresses provide investigators with a unique experience that can have a lasting impact on their research careers, including possibilities for international collaboration. The meeting provides a forum for scientists to meet foreign colleagues working in the same and related fields, leading to working relationships and lifelong scientific interactions. Speakers have the opportunity not only to present their research to a multinational audience, but also to expand their international networks. Through this travel grant program, young investigators will have the opportunity to listen to distinguished international scientists discuss the most current research in biochemistry and molecular biology, including proteomics, and to interact with them in an informal setting.
Broader Impact: The IUBMB represents biochemists and molecular biologists in over 70 countries around the world that belong to the Union as Adhering Bodies or associated Adhering Bodies through biochemical societies, national research councils or academies of science. Four regional groupings of biochemical societies FASBMB (Africa), FAOBMB (Asia and Oceania), FEBS (Europe) and PABMB (the Americas) are also regional associated organizations of IUBMB. This joint congress of the IUBMB and FEBS will provide scientists with diverse perspectives on research being done internationally, including in developing countries, and the impact of research worldwide. The interactions that will result from this travel grant program will promote international cooperation and exchange of ideas, leading to scientific advances that would be difficult to achieve in isolation.
