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IUPS Travel Award Program |
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The 35th IUPS Congress National Organizing Committee allocated funds for a travel award program to encourage the participation of young scientists in the Congress. The goal of the program was to provide travel grants to physiologists from developing countries, as well as women and under-represented minorities who were within 15 years of receiving their doctoral degrees. The IUPS received 413 applications for the travel award program and were able to make awards to 167 applicants. The awards ranged in amount from $1,500 to $500. Unfortunately, because of financial difficulties and visa problems, only 140 candidates were actually able to attend the Congress. For those who were able to attend, their participation in the Congress was eye-opening and life changing. As noted by one award recipient, “The fruitful discussion with other participants gave us all new research ideas and new collaboration connections. The scientific sessions were simply excellent, bringing the frontier of science. The IUPS congress is one of the most important congresses I attend. I will start new projects and apply new grants based on the ideas I had in the congress. I also got some personal feedback from my presentation.” Another award recipient commented “This experience of participation in the 35th IUPS Congress opened a new window for me. It helped me to get a new understanding of America and science. I got to know so many excellent scientists and what they were doing. At the same time I was moved by warm-hearted Americans.” After the Congress, award recipients were asked to complete a survey to help the National Organizing Committee to assess the value of the travel award program. Of the 119 respondents to a Post-Congress Travel Award Recipient Survey, 56 award recipients were graduate students and 37 received their doctoral degrees between 2000 and 2004. The respondents were asked how they would rate the 35th IUPS Congress, 87% or 104 rated the Congress as an 8 or higher (with 10 being best). While only 37% of the awardees combined their attendance at the Congress with a visit to a research laboratory or attendance at a satellite meeting, over 78% used the Congress as an opportunity to develop collaborative research projects with colleagues. Similarly, 70% used the Congress as a means of identifying opportunities to work in another laboratory. As noted in Table 1, the largest group of applications came from the Asian/Oceanan region which includes India (31 applications), Pakistan (8 applications), China (29 applications), Japan (7 applications), and Australia (13 applications). From Europe, the participation was greatest from the United Kingdom (13 applications), Russia (14 applications), and Hungary (9 applications). From Africa, Nigerian physiologist submitted 26 applications and 9 were submitted by Egyptian scientists. Mexico (7 applications), Venezuela (6 applications), Brazil (10 applications) and Argentina (4 applications) contributed the most applications from Latin America. Overall, 40% of 413 award applicants received awards to attend the Congress.
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