In the last few years, the Otter Specialist Group has strived to promote youth activities within the group, initiated by creating the Otter Youth Circle.
The 16th IOC is a fantastic platform to showcase the involvement of youth (students and early career scientists), and to continue in this direction, we have decided to create some initiatives focussed on youth.
These include:
– finding travel grantsÂ
– finding grants to pay for conference fees
– offering awards for early career scientist presentations
– organising a mixer between youth and professionals to facilitate networking
Funding opportunities are now closed
If you are a student or an early career scientist, you can send a request for special financial support for consideration. However, please be aware that we can not guarantee any support and all possible grants rely on potential donors. We therefore strongly encourage everyone to apply for funding elsewhere, if possible! Please fill in this form with as many details as possible so we can try to pair you up with a potential sponsor before the 1st of January 2025.
Click here to sponsor a participant
We are facing increasing difficulties to enable early career scientists to attend the conference due to a general lack of monetary resources, and we are looking for any help to increase their chances of participating in this important congress. We would appreciate it if you could consider sponsoring an early career scientist, either with a small amount or a full coverage of their expenses. If you are able to support one of our participants, there would be various options to highlight your affiliation, for example adding your logo or name to our website, social media channels and of course printed material during the conference. An official thank you letter and certificate of sponsoring will also be provided. After the conference, you will receive a short report with photos that could be used for your own outreach activities or internal documents. We have many requests for sponsoring and will be grateful if you could help! Please fill in the above form before the 31st of December 2024. If you wish to remain anonymous, we will respect your request.
This initiative will take place during the 16th IOC
Early career scientists (youth from 18 to 35 years of age) present during the 16th IOC will be able to participate in a competition for the best oral and poster presentations. All early career scientists that have registered will be contacted via email at a later stage and can indicate if they want to participate or not.
This initiative will take place during the 16th IOC
To promote networking between early career scientists (youth from 18 to 35 years of age) and experienced otter researchers, we will host a special mixer event - for free! This will be a chance to connect with professionals, ask questions and enjoy the company of otter mentors from all over the world. All early career scientists that have registered will be contacted via email at a later stage and can indicate if they want to participate or not.