Challenger Society Travel Awards

Travel awards are available to assist postgraduate students and Masters Degree students in their 4th year who are members of the Challenger Society and are based at a UK research institution, to attend scientific conferences or participate in cruises and fieldwork. Priority is given to students who have had a paper or poster accepted for a recognised conference. The Society cannot guarantee that an award will be made and this should not be assumed in applying for funding elsewhere.

It is possible to apply for travel awards to the value of £250 for UK travel or £500 for international travel during your period of study. However, travel awards cannot be made retrospectively, the application must be submitted prior to travel. The Challenger Society will not fund internal flights within the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) unless it is necessary to allow participation (reasonable examples include but are not limited to caring responsibilities and disabilities). We do not require applicants to disclose personal information but ask them to acknowledge that they fall under a reasonable exemption to allow an internal flight in their application.  

• Masters Degree students in their 4th year of study may apply for one award, EITHER a UK travel award OR an international travel award

• MSc students may apply for one award, EITHER a UK travel award OR an international travel award.

• PhD students may apply for two awards, i.e., both UK, both international or one of each.

Please submit your application to one of the following deadlines: January 15th, April 15th, July 15th and October 15th. Each deadline will have a total budget of around £1,500. Monies can be rolled over if not fully used in any one period. If you have any questions regarding the scheme, please contact Chris Auckland (c.auckland@uea.ac.uk)

Detailed Guidelines for Travel Award Applicants can be found here

The Travel Award application form is available here.

Reports from previous winners of Travel Awards can be found here

Instructions to Awardees:

If you have been awarded a Travel Award, congratulations! As part of the award it is mandatory to fill in a report of your travel prior to receiving the funds. A template of the report can be found here and must be used. Please fill this in and email as a word document to Dr. Christopher Auckland (c.auckland@uea.ac.uk) with one attached photo. If you have a twitter account please help raise the profile of the Society and our support of students by tweeting during your travels and tagging @challengersoc.

The Challenger Society is working towards being a fully equitable and inclusive organisation (see EDI statement here).