ESB Mobility Award

ESB Mobility Award for Early Career Researchers

The ESB Mobility Grant aims to provide ESB members with financial assistance to carry out collaborative research in a foreign country as part of their PhD or postdoctoral research. The ESB mobility award has two categories:

starting: a mobility award to start a new collaboration;
strengthening: a mobility award to strengthen existing collaborations.

Timing

The application deadline is 3th May 2025.
The winner(s) will be announced at the annual ESB congress.

General

The ESB Mobility Grant aims to provide ESB members with financial assistance to carry out collaborative research in a foreign country as part of their PhD or postdoctoral research.
The award value is based on the estimated costs up to a maximum of €4000.
The award value is intended as a contribution towards travel costs, living expenses for the duration of the visit, and potential project related costs. The costs should be reasonable and justified.
The award cannot be used for salary and does not cover expenses related to spouses or dependents.
The award does not cover overhead costs.
The exchange period should take place within 18 months of receiving the award.

Application

Applicants must submit an application to the chair of the ESB student and educational committee by the published deadline (education.chair@esbiomech.org). Applicants will receive a confirmation of receipt within one week after the deadline has passed. If you do not receive this confirmation, please remind the chair of the ESB student and educational committee to ensure the application is submitted correctly.
The application must include:
- CV (max 2 pages).
- Publication list.
- Research plan, including motivation why the visit to the foreign lab would benefit the student and their research (max 3 pages, excluding references), including a tentative date/period of the research stay. Elaborate also whether, why and how, the mobility would either:
  – start a new lasting collaboration (starting category) or;
  – strengthen (strengthening category) an existing one.
- Support letter from supervisor also indicating the status of the applicant. In case of a new collaboration, the letter should also confirm that the applicant and supervisor do not have any joint publications or involvement in current research projects with the host during the last five years. In case of the strengthening category, the letter should indicate which joint publications or research projects have been collaboratively pursued in the last five years.
- Invitation letter from foreign laboratory; the host does not need to be an ESB member
- Statement that the applicant has no funding or is applying for funding from other sources.
- Budget estimate indicating costs for: travel, accommodation, fees and other related, relevant expenses etc. You must also list any other funding/remuneration you are receiving from other sources.

Eligibility

The applicant has to be either a PhD student enrolled at a University or a research institute, or a postdoctoral researcher. Any time in maternity/paternity leave should be specified in the application and will not be accounted for in the time limit for eligibility.
At the time of the application deadline, the applicant must be an ESB member who has been in good standing for at least 6 months. Please check your membership and payment status before applying for this award.
The scientist responsible at the foreign lab can support only one application.
The supervisor can support only one application.
The lab visit should be to a country different to the one where the applicant is enrolled for their PhD studies and/or postdoctoral research.
The duration of the research visit should be between 2-6 months.
For the category of the award where a new collaboration is started, the applicant and supervisor should not have any joint publications or involvement in current research projects with the scientist in charge at the foreign laboratory (the host) during the last five years.

Award committee and selection process

The chair of the Student and Educational Committee appoints an Award Committee once the application deadline has passed. The applications will be reviewed by the mobility-awards committee that will decide on grant allocations.
Applications not meeting one or more of the eligibility criteria will not be considered any further.
The Award Committee consists of a minimum of three and a maximum of 5 members, paying attention to geographical, topic and gender diversity. Members must disclose any potential conflict of interest (e.g. either nominating or submitting for the award or a former mentor or mentee) to the Council. Members in conflict will be excused from participation in the assessment of the award.
The review will be based on the submitted research plan, academic merits of the applicant commensurate to experience, and the benefits with respect to applicant seniority of establishing a new collaboration or strengthening an existing collaboration.
Detailed rating criteria and scoresheets will be provided to the Committee members by the Chair of the Student and Education Committee.
In case there is only one application, the application should score an average (of all committee members) of at least 3.5 on all criteria to be considered worthy of an award.
The ESB will announce the winners by email, on the website, in the newsletter, and at the annual congress.

Final reporting and publications

The winner(s) may be required to submit a short scientific report (3-5 pages) to the ESB Education and Student Committee chair no later than three months after the lab-visit was completed, including 1) the results obtained, 2) skills learned, 3) discussion of how the results and new skills/knowledge will be applied in future research, and 4) a short financial report about the expenditures.
The winner(s) may be asked to prepare a short video for the ESB You Tube channel.
The winner(s) may be asked to write a short piece describing their experiences for the student’s corner in the newsletter.
The winner(s) are required to acknowledge the ESB mobility award in any publications resulting from the work (See ESB Related Publications for detail).
The winner(s) may be asked to provide reasonable justification for the expenses made.
The winner(s) is required to discuss with the chair of the educational and student committee if for any reasons the research plan had to change for any unexpected circumstances. If the chair of the educational and student committee agrees with the change the winner is required to refund the portion of the value of the award that has not been used.
The winner(s) are required to refund the full value of the award if the exchange period does not take place.

For more details, please contact the ESB Education and Student Chair at education.chair@esbiomech.org.