Travel Grants
The IRTF is pleased to be able to provide a limited number of travel grants and other financial support to attend research group meetings and workshops. The following types of support are available:
- Diversity travel grants
- Applied Networking Research Workshop travel grants
A limited number of fee waivers to attend co-located IRTF and IETF meetings are also available.
Diversity Travel Grants
We are pleased to offer a number of Diversity Travel Grants to support early-career academics and PhD students from under-represented groups to attend the IRTF meetings co-located with the IETF-122 Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in March 2025.
The selection criteria for IRTF Diversity Grants will prioritize people who:
- Are from a demographic that is under-represented in the IRTF;
- Are PhD students or early-career academics (PhD students should have completed at least one year of full-time study in their PhD programme; early-career academics should be within their first four years of paid post-PhD employment at a University);
- Can demonstrate engagement with research of relevance to the IRTF (work with a focus on congestion control, transport protocols, network measurement or path-aware networking is especially encouraged, but we will consider work of relevance to all areas of IRTF).
Interested applicants should submit an application letter and up-to-date CV as PDF documents. The application letter should be clearly state the following information:
- the name of the applicant, their University, and whether they are a PhD student or early-career researcher;
- a link to their personal or departmental webpage;
- a summary of research interests and plans for future research;
- an statement of why the attendance at the IRTF is important to the applicant’s research, the name(s) of the IRTF research group(s) that they will contribute to, and a summary of how they will contribute;
- a statement of how their attendance would help enhance diversity of the IRTF;
- a cost estimate, including the cost of economy air or rail fare, accommodation, or other costs, and identifying the source of any price quotes; and
- any additional information the applicant feels is relevant to support their case.
We recognise that effective engagement with IRTF research groups may require ongoing rather than one-off participation and encourage repeat applications from those who previously received diversity travel grants. When applying for such repeat awards, applicants must 1) outline how they contributed to previous IRTF meetings; 2) explain why an additional travel grant is needed and what specific IRTF contributions it will enable; and 3) if their work in IRTF is likely to require long-term engagement, describe steps they are taking to obtain funding from other sources. Repeat awards are not guaranteed and depend on available funds and evidence of strong engagement with IRTF.
If the applicant is a PhD student, their adviser must also send a letter of support verifying the applicant’s good standing in the institution, and confirming that they have completed at least one year of full-time (or equivalent part-time) PhD study.
We will confirm receipt of travel grant applications by email. If you do not receive confirmation within 48 hours of submission please contact the IRTF Chair to confirm.
Applicants will be reviewed by a selection committee comprising:
| Sofía Celi | Brave |
| Colin Perkins | University of Glasgow |
| Lars Eggert | Mozilla |
| Reese Enghardt | Netflix |
| Brian Trammell | |
| Allison Mankin | Salesforce |
| Jane Coffin | Connect Humanity |
| Marie-Jose Montpetit | |
| Melinda Shore | No Mountain Software |
| Lixia Zhang | UCLA |
Important dates are as follows:
| Diversity grant application deadline | December 9, 2024 |
| Diversity grant notification deadline | December 20, 2024 |
| IETF-122 Meeting in Bangkok | March 15-21, 2025 |
IRTF diversity travel grants are supported by Netflix, Comcast, Akamai, and Google.
Support for remote attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic: The focus of the diversity travel grants is on in-person attendance at IRTF meetings co-located with the IETF since we believe this offers the best opportunity to connect with the community. We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic is still causing difficultiess with travel for many, however, and so will also consider applications to offset reasonable costs incurred to support remote attendance (e.g., childcare, travel to a local meeting hub, etc.) where such would encourage diversity of participation. Such applications should be submitted following the process for diversity travel grants outlined above. We are grateful to Comcast for this support.
Fee waivers for remote attendance are available under a separate programme and are not covered by these diversity grants.
Applied Networking Research Workshop Travel Grants
The ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW) is an annual academic workshop that provides a forum for researchers, vendors, network operators, and the Internet standards community to present and discuss emerging results in applied networking research, and to find inspiration from topics and open problems discussed at the IETF.
Travel grants may be made available for students to attend the ANRW each year. The requirements, application process, and deadline vary slightly each year, so please see the ANRW webpage for details of the current workshop and its travel grant programme.