Conference Grants

This program offers financial support to attend conferences in the fields relevant to the Action and, by COST rules, is targeted at young researchers (younger than 40 years old) as well as to researchers of any age affiliated to Institutes in Inclusive Target Countries (see the COST website for an updated list of countries).

Note that this support is restricted to high-level third party conferences, i.e. conferences that are not organised by our Action. In other words, the meetings listed here are excluded from the call.

Scope of the call

This call is open to researchers who participate in any of the working groups of the Action and are affiliated to an Institute in a COST Country or in a Near Neighbour Country (NNC). Please note that participants affiliated to International Organisations (including CERN and ICTP) are not eligible to apply, by COST rules.

The call supports researchers who want to present their work in high-level conferences not organised by this Action (i.e., these meetings are excluded). The grant is paid as a lump sum after the presentation has taken place. There are two types of grants

1. ITC conference grants, reserved to researchers (of any age) affiliated in an Inclusive Target Countries who plan to give an oral presentation;

2. Young Researchers and Innovator conference grants, reserved to researchers younger than 40 (from any COST or NNC country) who plan to give an oral or poster presentation.

Researchers who are eligible in both categories should apply only once, in a category of their choosing. A researcher may submit only one application per call.

Successful applicants must acknowledge the COST action THEORY-CHALLENGES in their presentation as follows: "This presentation was supported by a conference grant from the COST action CA22113 THEORY-CHALLENGES" and include the relevant logos.

Eligible conferences

For the 2026 call, the eligible conferences are:

• Black Hole Perturbations and Holography, IGAP, Trieste (Italy), 9 - 20 March 2026 

• Strings and Geometry 2026, Uppsala (Sweden), 19-22 May 2026

• Integrability in Gauge and String Theory 2026, DESY, Hamburg (Germany), 8 - 12 June 2026

• PASCOS 2026, the 31st International Symposium on Particles, Strings, and Cosmology, University of Sheffield (UK), 22 - 26 June 2026

• String Math 2026, Edinburgh Futures Institute, Edinburgh (UK), 22 - 26 June 2026

• String Phenomenology 2026, Paris (France), 29 June - 03 July 2026

Selection criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• The quality and impact of the third-party conference in light of the scientific goals of this Action

• The quality and impact of the research to be presented in light of the scientific goals of this Action

Preference will furthermore be given to researchers who

• Are eligible for both Grants of type 1. and 2. (irrespective of the grant for which they applied)

•  For grant 2., present an oral rather than poster presentation

• Have not previously been funded by this Action for a conference grant

• Do not hold a tenured or permanent position

• Present their research at an event located in a COST country

How to apply

Please log into your e-COST account or create an account. If you are not a member of the Action, please apply to join one or more working group. 

There are separate application procedures for the two types of grant described above

1. 1. To apply for an ITC conference grant please visit this link. 

   2. To apply for a YRI conference grant please visit this link.

Applications must be submitted before the deadline of the call, which is January 14, 2026 at noon CET.

Supporting documents

You will have to fill in a form and, subsequently, upload the following documents:

• The filled-in grant application template, which you may download from the portal (you may leave the section “Relevance of the Conference topic to the Action” blank in this case)

• The acceptance letter from the organisers if any. You can also upload a blank document if you have not yet been invited to speak.

• The abstract of your talk.

• As “other documents”, a CV with a list of publications.

Evaluation and selection of applicants

Applications will be selected by the Grant Evaluation Committee, composed of Profs. L. Anguelova, N. Bobev, P. Caputa, J.Erdmenger, C. Hoyos, R. Monteiro, E. Tonni, J. Rosseel, R. Schiappa, S. Vandoren, K. Zarembo, chaired by the Grant Awarding Coordinators (B. Pioline, V. Puletti) and with the participation of the Diversity Coordinator (N. Buyukcizmeci). 

Successful applicants will be notified by February 2, 2026, except for unforeseeable delays.

For this year, due to various administrative constraints the only eligible conference is the Eurostrings 2024 Conference, taking place in Southampton from September 2 to 6, 2024. Support is given in the form of a lump sum which will cover travel and local expenses as well as registration fee. ITC Conference Grantees are required to give a contributed talk at the conference. Applications should be submitted on the e-COST portal (see above for “how to apply”) before the deadline June 9th, 2024.

This call is already closed. The participation of the following scientists have been funded:

• Avik Banerjee (Crete Center for Theoretical Physics) - Nambu-Goto equation from three-dimensional gravity

• Bercel Boldis (HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics) - Strong coupling expansion of determinant observables in supersymmetric gauge theories

• David Osten (University of Wroclaw) - On classical integrability of heterotic strings