IDEA Travel Support

IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility travel support: Call for Applications for CASE 2023

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Women in Engineering (WiE) committee launched a new initiative in 2023  to support people interested in the research field of robotics and automation. Our goal is to increase diversity in our community by facilitating access of underrepresented groups to one of the major IEEE RAS conferences.

This award will be granted to three people per conference per year. Each awardee will receive a maximum of $3,300 to cover the travel costs of the trip to the selected conference. Please note that the award has the form of travel reimbursement.

We call for applications for the IDEA travel support for people willing to attend the IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) in New Zealand!

This new IDEA travel support focuses on supporting the following: 

• Secondary/undergrad/graduate students interested in robotics or automation topics
• Underrepresented groups
• People with disabilities
• People who have stepped down from the field for some time and want to return (e.g., due to a disease or parental leave).

Please note that eligible for this support are people who are not actively publishing to IEEE RAS conferences or similar in the last three years! Our goal is to support people with enthusiasm about robotics and automation, who want to (re-)enter the field. 

Through a mentoring program, the selected applicants will be paired with one or two mentors from the RAS WiE Committee during the conference to help bring synergies with the RAS community.

In exchange, the selected applicants will have to assist and actively be involved in the organisation team of one of the IEEE RAS WiE Lunch/Aperó Events at any of the mentioned conferences. Moreover, the selected applicants will act as yearly ambassadors of RAS WiE. Optionally, we encourage the awardees, after having attended one of the RAS conferences, to help the WiE committee co-organize an event (online or in person) at their local community/university to share their unique experiences at the robotics and automation conferences and host speakers from the RAS community.

This call for applications to the IEEE CASE 2023 conference to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, on 26 - 30 August 2023, and the theme of the conference is Automation for a Resilient Society.

Deadline to submit applications: 5 May 2023, 11:59 PT.

Decisions: 7 June 2023

To apply for the IDEA travel support, please follow the steps in the Application Form. 

You will be asked to submit your CV and a motivation letter (maximum 500 words), in a single PDF file. Please consider including the following information in the motivation letter:

• Describe how this travel support will influence your professional path;

• Describe a significant technical project you have worked on;

• Give one or two examples of outreach activities you have implemented. For example, indicate if you are a member of a society or a local community and your involvement/contributions to them, or perhaps you have participated within a team in a robotics competition, or you have organised an event, etc.

After the deadline (May 5, 2023), the applications will be peer-reviewed by RAS members, and the IDEA committee will make the final decision for the selection of three applicants to attend the CASE 2023. Decisions are to be announced by June 7, 2023. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at ieee-ras-wie@ieee.org.