Travel to a conference as a nonstudent

January 15, 2015 2:00 PM

I work as professional staff for a new center at an academic institution, and we have limited funds to pay for travel. I have had a poster accepted at an international conference (read $$$) which I would love to go to, but it will be a chunk out of pocket. The university itself has small scholarships for Pro Staff (up to $400) that I have applied for, but I am hoping there are other grant/scholarship opportunities that I could apply for. Do such grants exist for nonstudents?
posted by lil' ears to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Many organizations have scholarship funds for folks like you--it'd be worthwhile to look into what the organization in question might offer, and see if you qualify for a travel scholarship (or something) for "new professionals" or "innovative people" or etc. And be prepared to toot your own horn a little.
posted by magdalemon at 2:11 PM on January 15, 2015

Have you contacted the organization that puts on the conference about this? They seem likeliest to offer a relevant scholarship, or to know of related organizations that provide such scholarships.

Also, this would be a great question to ask on a listserv/LinkedIn group/Google Group of a professional group you belong to. I could answer this with great specificity if you were in my field, but in glancing at your past questions, it looks like you are not.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 2:24 PM on January 15, 2015

Best answer: I used to work in a university grants office. Your best bets are indeed the conference itself and professional associations either associated with the conference or in your field. There are not many general travel grants, unfortunately! Are you at UW? They have access to SciVal, which is a funding search database. If you're at a different institution, check with your Office of Research or similar to see if they have funding databases (COS Pivot is another big one).
posted by wsquared at 4:42 PM on January 15, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks all! I will contact the conference (no handy link to scholarships, unfortunately) and I will definitely look into SciVal since I am indeed at UW :)
posted by lil' ears at 9:03 AM on January 16, 2015