The ITC Conference Grants applicant is required to be a member of a Working Group in ML4NGP COST Action (Apply here to join).

ITC Conference Grants are limited to Young Researchers from COST ITCs and NNCs.

• ITC countries are: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Republic of North Macedonia, Republic of Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine.
• NNC countries are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Jordan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia.

The applicant must deliver an oral/poster presentation at the conference in question and must be listed in the official event/conference programme. The main subject of the oral presentation/poster presentation/speech at the approved conference must be on the topic of the Action and acknowledge COST funding.

The participation of each applicant must be pre-approved by the Action MC. Attendance at European conferences is preferred. However, conferences held elsewhere can also be considered.

Applications are collected after the application deadline and evaluated taking into account the following policies:

• Allocated budget: A maximum of 80% of the yearly ITC-CG budget may be spent on a single call for application. Where necessary, applications will be ranked accordingly.
• Participation in ML4NGP Action: The hosting lab shall be actively involved in ML4NGP, i.e., listed as MC or WG members on the website.
• Relevance to current WG activities: The application must clearly demonstrate the links to WG goals and activities for the budget period.
• Relevant high-profile events: Strong preference will be given to high-profile scientific events in Europe. Relevance to ML4NGP Action has to be justified.
• Repetitive applications: Applications by the same individual will be discarded unless properly justified.

The Evaluation Committee will discard applications failing any of the above policies even in the presence of remaining funds

1 – Complete electronic application form at https://e-services.cost.eu/activity/grants

• Title
• Start and end date of the conference (The end date of the conference should be no later than October 15);
• Budget requested by the applicant;
• Information about the conference and contribution type (type of presentation and author(s)).

2 – Upload the supporting documents to e-COST:

• ITC Conference grant application (https://www.cost.eu/ITCConference_GrantApplication)
• Copy of the abstract of the accepted oral or poster presentation
• Acceptance letter from the conference organizers
• Justification for the budget

Within the 2 weeks after the deadline for application, the Evaluation Committee will make the assessment and grant coordinator will send the notice to the Grant Holder and to the applicant.

The Grant Holder will send to the Applicant an acceptance letter in which s/he is informed about the approval of the proposal and the level of the financial grant given. The Applicant has to return this acceptance letter, after accepting the grant conditions, with his/her signature.

From 1 day to 10 days after the end of the grant, the grantee will receive a reminder to upload the report.
The deadline to submit the report is 30 days from the end of the activity, within 15 days from the end date of the Grant Period or within a shorter timeframe as per Grant Holder/ Grant Awarding Coordinator’s request to meet reporting deadlines.

The grantee must complete the report template, upload, and submit it in e-COST along with additional supporting documents:

• Complete the report template (https://www.cost.eu/ITCConference_Report) , upload, and submit it in e-COST
• Certificate of attendance
• Programme of the conference or book of abstracts / proceedings indicating the presentation (oral or poster)
• Copy of the given presentation (oral or poster)