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 throughparticipation 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.
Funding Information
THEME
To assist early career researchers to travel overseas for professional development through attending conferences.
FUNDING OBJECTIVE
- To assist early career staff members with an appointment of at least three years to attend overseas conferences to develop their professional careers, and to interact with their peers in the international scene.
NOTE
Generally the destination is 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, the application will be considered.
The Foundation requires that the traveller's organisation commit their own funding before requesting a matching grant.
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.
Grant summaries
The University of Sydney, NSW
Dr Alexandra Buckley, Diabetes Unit, Australian Health Policy Institute, School of Public Health.
$1,675 in 2008 to Dr Alexandra Buckley to attend the 7th International Diabetes Federation - Western Pacific Region Congress, Wellington, New Zealand.
‘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.
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
Jordan Clark and Thomas Stieglitz sampling for radionuclides in Australian mangroves