Call Document

Details of the call, including eligibility, how to apply, key dates, and evaluation criteria, are provided here.

Download the STOCHASTICA ITC Conference Grant Call 1 Documentation as a PDF (300KB).

This document summarises important information and is intended as a guide. Please refer to the COST Annotated Rules for full and up-to-date details.

Key dates and deadlines

Call open from February 11, 2026. Conferences must finish before October 16, 2026 to be eligible for support.

Assessment panel meeting dates:

1. March 18, 2026 (apply before 5pm GMT, March 4)
2. May 20, 2026 (apply before 5pm GMT, May 6)

Applications should be received at least two weeks in advance of a panel meeting in order to be considered at that meeting.

Inclusiveness Target Country (ITC) Conference Grants

ITC Conference grant funds an oral presentation of their own work within the scope of the Action by an Action Participant affiliated to a legal entity located in an Inclusiveness Target Country / Near Neighbour Country in a high-level conference fully organized by a third party, i.e. not organized nor co-organized by the COST Action.

 ITC Conference Grants:

• serve COST Excellence and Inclusiveness Policy;
• support the establishment of a strong network, increased visibility in the research community through sharing of work, and the acquisition of knowledge;
• can contribute to increasing the visibility of the Action.

ITC Conference grantees will receive support for attending and presenting their own work within the scope of the Action (oral presentation) in a conference and can establish new contacts for future collaborations.

It is essential that the conference relates to STOCHASTICA’s objectives.

Eligible Applicants

ITC Conference grant applicants should be COST Members and affiliated to a legal entity located in an Inclusiveness Target Country / Near Neighbour Country.

Eligibility can be checked here:  https://www.cost.eu/am-i-eligible/

Financial Support

ITC Conference grants provide a contribution for travelling, accommodation and subsistence expenses, registration fees, and overall effort.

The scheme will award up to a maximum of €2,500 per grant for face-to-face conferences. We expect to award grants in this call with an average award amount of €1,200.

Application Procedure

1. The applicant encodes a grant application by logging into e-COST and clicking on the Grant Applications tab. To encode a new application, the applicant clicks on ‘Apply for grant’. The application page contains:
   1. Applicant details
   2. Title of the presentation
   3. Conference title, date, and country
   4. Budget requested
   5. Attendance Type (face-to-face or virtual)
   6. Bank details
2. After encoding the Grant application form by filling in all the above-mentioned sections, the applicant also needs to upload the actual application template completed, which shall be previously downloaded from the following link: https://www.cost.eu/ITCG-application-template    
3. Upload the supporting documents

After adding the supporting document(s), the applicant can submit the grant application. The application status will change from draft to submitted. Prior to approval of the application, if need be, the applicant will be able to revise the application.

Supporting documents: 

1. ITC Conference grant application (based on e-COST template)
2. Copy of the abstract/proceeding of the accepted oral presentation
3. Acceptance letter from the conference organisers
4. Other documents required by the Action:
1. Description of the quality and excellence of the conference, highlighting the relevance of the conference to the objectives of STOCHASTICA Action (0.5 page maximum). 1_Lastname_Conference.pdf
2. A letter of motivation by the applicant with a detailed explanation about how the attendance to this conference will contribute to the Grantee’s career (0.5 page maximum). In addition, please indicate the working group of the COST Action to which the work presented belongs. 2_Lastname_ Letter_of_motivation.pdf
3. Requested budget and its justification on half a page (total expected cost for travel, accommodation and daily allowance, additional financial support). In addition, please indicate if other funding sources are available and if the applicant has applied for funding from other COST Actions. 3_Lastname__Budget.pdf
4. Short Bio of the applicant (1 page maximum). 4_Lastname_ CV applicant.pdf
5. Scanned copy of passport (if the applicant does not have a passport, a scanned copy of the national ID card) 5_Lastname_ passport/ID card.pdf

Evaluation Process

When the Grant application is submitted, the Grant Awarding Coordinator is notified. The applicant, Action Chair, and Vice Chair also receive a copy of the notification. The Grant Awarding Coordinator will be able to review and progress or reject the Grant application on behalf of the Management Committee (MC).

The Grant Awarding coordinator will then propose a list of applications to the selection committee, composed of the Action Chair, the Grant Awarding coordinator and a representative of each WG. In case of ultimate rejection, a justification will be included in the e-notification to the applicant.

Evaluation will be based on the quality and scientific excellence of the conference, the relevance of the conference for the achievement of STOCHASTICA objectives, the impact on the career of the grantee, and the applicant CV.

Successful applicants will receive an e-mail from the grant holder (Grant Letter Notification), stating the official approval of the ITC Conference Grant application, the granted budget and a payment request form which has to be completed after the completion of the Conference for the grant to be transferred.

More Information

Applications are handled by the Grant Awarding Coordinator.

1. A list of all applications is distributed to all members of the selection committee in the form of a table.
2. To guarantee a fair and objective evaluation, an evaluator should have no affiliation with the home institution of the ITC Conference Grant proposal.
3. All applications are evaluated by two members of the selection committee. The Grant Awarding coordinator distributes the proposals to the individual evaluators.
4. The criteria given in the table below shall be applied for evaluation. The first criterion (1.) is assessed by the Grant Awarding coordinator prior to the evaluation process.

5. The evaluators report their evaluations to the Grant Awarding Coordinator
6. The Grant Awarding Coordinator reports the final result to the selection committee to be discussed. Where the number of applications deemed fundable exceeds the number of grants available, a random selection will be applied.
7. The applicants are informed about the decision reached.

After the Conference

1 day, and 10 days after the end of the grant the grantee receives 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 (October 31, 2026) or within a shorter timeframe as per Grant Holder / Grant Awarding Coordinator’s request to meet reporting deadlines. The grantee will receive an e-notification to submit the report and other supporting documents on e-COST, the Grant Holder Manager and the Grant Awarding Coordinator will be in a copy of the notification.

The supporting information requested after the conference is:

• Report template (https://www.cost.eu/ITCG-report-template);
• 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).

The status of the application changes from “Grant letter sent” to “Report submitted”.

The Grant Awarding Coordinator, Action Chair, and Vice Chair are notified when the grantee submits the report and must verify the validity and content of the report by clicking the link in the notification. After review of the report by the procedures agreed by the MC, the Grant Awarding Coordinator needs to encode their approval or rejection on behalf of the MC. Upon the recording of the payment, an e-notification is sent to the grantee, with a copy to the Grant Holder manager.

Acknowledgement of CA24104 in proceedings and presentations

All applicants must include one slide with all the required acknowledgment elements at the end of their presentations.

All presentations and proceedings of conferences supported by the CA24104 ITC Conference Grant program must contain the following acknowledgement: The attendance to this conference was supported by the COST Action “Stochastic Differential Equations: Computation, Inference, Applications (STOCHASTICA) - CA24104, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)”.

The COST and Action CA24104 logos, EU emblem & text and COST website (www.cost.eu) do not need to be embedded throughout the entire multimedia content, but only at the beginning or end.

All presentations should also include the boilerplate: “COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation network. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.”