We recognize that the high price of travel and registration can make it hard for some people to attend BOSC/ISMB. Below are some ways to apply for financial assistance to present your work at BOSC 2025.
OBF Event Fellowships
The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF)’s Event Fellowships are aimed at increasing diverse participation at events promoting open science in the bioinformatics and biological research communities.
Awards are made three times a year; the next deadline is April 1, 2025 (note that this is earlier than the ISMB/ECCB submission deadline of April 17).
BOSC registration fee waiver
Authors who submit their work to BOSC can request ISMB registration fee support on the abstract submission form (these requests are not seen by reviewers). This initiative is funded by sponsorships.
Only presenting authors whose abstracts are accepted for talk or poster presentation are eligible for this fee waiver, and depending on the number of applicants, not all requests will be granted.
Requests from early-career applicants and people from underrepresented geographical areas will be given priority. Applicants will be notified about whether their fee waiver request was granted around the same time that abstract acceptance notifications go out (May 14).
ISCB Conference Fellowships
The ISCB (the organization that runs the ISMB conference) offers a limited number of conference fellowships for students and postdocs to present their work at ISMB.
Rules for the ISCB conference fellowships (these are not BOSC-specific):
- Eligibility is limited to students or postdocs, plus early career researchers from Low through Upper-Middle Economic countries. Postdocs and employees of any US federal agency are not eligible.
- Only open to those who have a Proceeding, Talk, or Poster (not late poster) accepted for presentation at ISMB/ECCB.
- The applicant must be the presenting author of the work.
- Applicant must be a current ISCB member
- Applicant must be able to pay all expenses of attending the conference up front, including conference registration fee, travel, accommodations, and meals.
- The application will be sent automatically to eligible people on May 14 (the day after talk/poster acceptances go out).
- The number of awards is limited; not all eligible applicants will receive awards.
Apply to be Event Staff at ISMB/ECCB
You can apply to work at ISMB/ECCB 2025 for approximately 20-24 hours in exchange for free registration and time-based pay. (When you’re not working, you can attend talks.) The application deadline is May 9, 2025. Note that Event Staff have to already be ISCB members.