Program Area

Travel

The Foundation's competitive early career travel grants program is distinctive in Australian philanthropy. The travel grants enable outstanding individuals, with promising careers and potentially important contributions to make to the Australian community, to exchange knowledge with their peers through

participation in professional development opportunities, for example attending an international conference in their field of growing expertise.

Most travel grant recipients in the past have been staff from universities or research institutes, but those working in the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector are encouraged to apply and staff from any organisation with BOTH Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) and Tax Concession Charity (TCC) status are eligible.

The grants made are small, generally between $2,000 and $3,000, and are paid to the individual's employing organisation. Note that travel grant applicants cannot request more than the cash financial contribution from the organisation.

It is important to read each section prior to downloading the form.

Download Application Form

FUNDING OBJECTIVE

The objective of our Travel Grants Program is to assist early career staff members with an appointment of at least three years, to attend overseas conferences to develop their research, and to interact with their peers in the international scene.

NOTE

Generally the destination needs to be outside Australia. In some instances, such as staff working in the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector, if a strong case is made for travel within Australia in terms of the professional development opportunity it will give to the individual and the potential benefits to their organisation, the application will be considered.

EXCLUSIONS

The Foundation does not provide travel grants for:

domestic travel

undergraduate, masters, or doctoral students; or

retrospective grants for travel already undertaken in part or in whole.

Case Study

The University of Sydney

$1,675 in 2008 to Dr Alexandra Buckley to attend the 7th International Diabetes Federation - Western Pacific Region Congress, Wellington, New Zealand.

Image: Dr Alexandra Buckley, Diabetes Unit, Australian Health Policy Institute, School of Public Health.

‘The mission statement of the Congress was “Diabetes Asia Pacific – working for solutions”. The project that I am managing is at the stage where locally relevant models of diabetes care are being developed and implemented. I gained significant benefit from listening to presentations on other diabetes care work that has been recently carried out in other developing countries, as I was able to gain insight into what works and what doesn’t in similar countries to those that I work in. I also contributed to this knowledge transfer by presenting some of the possible solutions to improving diabetes care that we have already implemented in Vanuatu, namely the national health worker training program to ensure that all health workers are working in a standardised manner in relation to diabetes care.’
Dr Alexandra Buckley

The 7th International Diabetes Federation – Western Pacific Region Congress was an extremely informative meeting, offering presentations at the forefront of all areas of diabetes research, including basic science, clinical health services and public health research. International researchers from developing and developed countries attended the meeting. Given that Dr Buckley’s current work is based in developing countries of the Pacific, this was of particular relevance to her. Dr Buckley was an author on three abstracts that were accepted for oral presentation.

$2,750 in 2007 to Dr Miriam Beauchamp to present the results of her research entitled ‘The relationship between brain volume and social skills in children with TBI’ at the Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Conference, San Diego, USA; and to train at the Functional Neuroimaging Unit, Canada.

‘The conference brought together a remarkable group of international researchers and covered a wide range of topics in traumatic brain injury. The range and depth of topics helped gain a good overview of current and future directions in the field … The time spent training at the Functional Neuroimaging Unit (FNU) was an incomparable opportunity to gain cutting edge knowledge regarding innovative neuroimaging techniques and analysis. The FNU houses state-of-the-art equipment and internationally renowned leaders in the field, with whom I had the privilege of training and discussing my research experience. These opportunities have been exceptional in motivating and further fuelling my research interests.’
Dr Miriam Beauchamp

James Cook University, QLD

$2,100 in 2008 to Dr Thomas Stieglitz to attend the International Atomic Energy Agency Radium and Radon Workshop, Venice, Italy.

As part of Dr Thomas Stieglitz’s ongoing research of land–ocean interaction, he is using the naturally occurring radionuclides radium and radon to study physical processes in the ocean, such as the influx of groundwater into the ocean, or mixing rates of the ocean.

'The main aim of the workshop was to discuss recent developments in the sampling methods and applications of radium and radon in aquatic environments. My future sampling technique is likely to improve based on discussions during the workshop. New collaborations are on the horizon and old partnerships with fellow members of international working groups have been fostered.’ Dr Thomas Stieglitz

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

$2,500 in 2007 to Mr Peter Hughes to attend the conference Neocraft: Modernity and the Crafts, Halifax, Canada; and a study tour in New York city, USA.

At the Neocraft conference Mr Peter Hughes presented the paper ‘Ecological is political: Toward an environmental theory for craft in the 21st century’. The paper dealt with studio crafts and contemporary environmental concerns with regard to both the need for crafts practitioners to respond to these issues while also recognising some of the advantages that might arise for them out of growing awareness of environmental concerns. While at the conference Peter Hughes met with colleagues from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom.