NSF Student Grants

US-based Student Travel Grant

Thanks to the generous support from the United States National Science Foundation, we will provide scholarship awards to selected US-based students attending the SIGIR 2025 conference.

The award will partially cover the cost of registration and travel expenses. It will be competitive in the sense that not every student attendee will receive an NSF Travel Award.

Awardees are expected to register for the main conference and make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation.


Eligibility

Applicants need to be a full-time student at a US-based academic institution.

Applicants do not need to have an accepted contribution at SIGIR 2025 to be eligible. US-based student authors who have applied to the SIGIR Student Travel Award, and have agreed to share data in case of NSF travel award, are automatically considered as an applicant to the NSF Student Travel Award and do not have to submit your application again.


Covered Expenses

For each selected recipient, the award will provide up to $2,000 to partially cover their travel cost. Covered expenses include registration, airfare, ground transportation, lodging, and meals. The award will be distributed in the form of reimbursement based after a recipient provides a list of itemized costs and receipts.

Airfare: The NSF travel award requires recipients to book an Economy class ticket in a timely manner and use a US-based airline or an airline compatible with the Open Skies Agreements. Please refer to details specified on the following page: Fly America Act, https://www.gsa.gov/policy-regulations/policy/travel-management-policy-overview/fly-america-act.

Lodging: The award will reimburse a maximum room rate of $270 per day.

Meals: The award will reimburse meals at per diem rate of $130 per day.

Note: the above rates exclude taxes and fees, which are not reimbursable for travel outside of the US.


Application Procedure

The applicant must fill out the form below and their academic/research advisor must complete a statement of support. A link to the advisor will be sent directly as soon as the applicant submits the application form.

Application submission is due on July 11, 2025 (AoE). To be considered for the travel award, both the application and statement of support must be submitted before the above due date.

Link to apply: https://unc.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_575M1yu3t50TD26





SIGIR 2025 NSF Student Travel Award Chair

Yue Wang, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

You may send your questions regarding the travel award application process to wangyue@unc.edu