Friday, June 10, 2011

Grants for Travel.

Who’s going to pay you to travel? Some organizations will, but remember, it’s like any other grant—your interests have to align with the grantors! If you are thinking, “who’s going to finance my vacation?” the answer is probably nobody. But if you’re thinking, “I need money to study French culture and language in France”, then maybe the Societe des Professeurs Francais et Franophones d'Amerique can help. Or, if you want to study Polish culture, the Kosciuszko Foundation might be what you want. The same is true if you want to study in a Scandinavian country—the American-Scandinavian Society may be what you are looking for. If you wish to provide service to other countries, the Rotary Club has scholarships for that purpose.


Here’s a strategy for finding cultural scholarships: go to Foundation Grants to Individuals (available at more than 600 U.S.cooperating collection libraries), and in the Type of Support box, type travel. In the geographic focus box, type international. Another field that tends to give grants to individuals to travel and study is the arts. If you are an artist, try using travel in the Type of Support box, and Arts in the Field of Interests. Using this strategy, you can find organizations like Meet the Composer, which sponsors travel expenses for composers.

Besides foundations, the government also sponsors some travel for study and work purposes. The National Security Education Program offers the Boren Scholarships for travel and study in strategically important foreign countries. The National Endowment for the Arts has grants to support travel for writers to further their work, too.

If you are need funds for biomedical research-related travel, you can use Scan Grants, a free database of non-federal grants in the field. One of the categories on the right hand side of the page is travel grants—click it and you get the full list. But if you want to narrow it down to grants relevant to your needs, do a more complex search, and choose the travel category, with a word search in your field, like "cancer" or "dermatology." You will get a list of grants for travel to conferences, study, or other research.

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