SEB

This year marks 100 years since the foundation of our Society in 1923, and the highlight of our centenary celebrations will be our Centenary Conference to be held 4–7 July in Edinburgh, the historic capital city of Scotland, where we will be celebrating the best that experimental biology has to offer and looking forward to the next 100 years.

Since its inception, the Society has expanded to over 1000 researchers from across the globe who are involved in 23 interest groups helping to advance cell, plant and animal research.

Sir Paul Nurse will be giving the President’s Centenary Lecture, and we are also delighted to welcome the distinguished Plenary Award Speakers Elizabeth Brainerd (Brown University; Animal Section), Lisa Ainsworth (University of Illinois; Plant Section) and Wendy Bickmore (University of Edinburgh; Cell Section).

The SEB executive team are very much looking forward to welcoming members and prospective members to what will most certainly be a hive of informed activity with awesome extracurricular activities in one of the UK’s most vibrant cities.

Assistance To Attend The Annual Conference

As part of our centenary celebrations, the SEB is providing up to £240 of additional funding to successful applicants through the SEB Travel Grant 2023 if their travel costs significantly exceed their travel grant allocation.

The SEB travel grant is designed to help students and early career researchers attend the Centenary Conference with a financial contribution towards travel and accommodation. Although this contribution was never intended to cover the full costs of travel, we are aware that travel costs (particularly flights) post-COVID and in the middle of this cost of living crisis have dramatically increased from previous years. As such, the SEB “top-up fund” is for successful applicants of the SEB Travel Grant whose costs significantly exceed the monetary value of the SEB Travel Grant they were awarded.

In this instance, we are defining “significantly exceed” as travel costs coming to more than twice that of the travel grant funding. For example, if your cheapest flight and hotel options totalled £1600, and you were successful in receiving £800 for the SEB Travel Grant, you could apply for some additional financial aid via the top-up fund.

Applications for the top-up fund will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Applicants will be scored on a judging system devised to prioritise attendees with reduced income, from low-income countries, or who have no access to other funding.