Objective: Grants are made for the support of research conferences, organised by and for research students, to be held in the United Kingdom.

Eligibility: The organiser of the conference will normally be a postgraduate student (or students) in mathematics, registered for a Doctorate at a UK university. Applications should be made by a member of the academic staff of the student’s Department. If the applicant is not a member of the Society then the application must be countersigned by a member who is prepared to support the application.

The conference must be aimed at and open to students from several universities. Normally, a conference of this type is focused on a particular branch of mathematics (excluding mathematics education) and consists of two or three invited lectures given by established mathematicians and many short talks (or posters) given by the other participants, the research students themselves. It is expected that normally there will be between 25 and 50 participants, and that they would all give a presentation.

Value of award : The overall upper limit for grants is £4,000.

Support is intended to contribute to the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of the participants. The application should include the name, institution and area of expertise of all invited lecturers, indicating those for whom funding is requested.

The Society will not make grants to cover the cost of secretarial help or publicity. The Society does not normally make grants to cover room hire, except that consideration will be given to requests for grants to cover room hire charges at De Morgan House where special circumstances can be shown.

Academic and financial reports of the conference are required.

The limit mentioned is an upper bound, not a standard award. Grants are made to meet actual expenditure on items in the application, and any unused grant must be returned to the Society as soon as possible and may not be used for other purposes.

Please note:

• The Society encourages applicants to seek additional funding elsewhere.
• Applicants should note that the Society is reluctant to award grants to conferences which clash with other significant mathematical meetings in Britain such as the British Mathematical Colloquium or the British Applied Mathematics Colloquium.
• Reasonable registration fees of between £10 and £20 per day should be charged.
• The Committee will support only mathematical meetings or the mathematical component of wider meetings, and here the word mathematical excludes mathematics education.
• Applicants must comply with the Society’s policy on Women in Mathematics and expectations of those seeking grants.
• The Society will not allow its limits for individual schemes to be exceeded by artificially sub-dividing an application into a number of separate requests under different headings.

Form of application: Application forms may be obtained from the Society’s Office or may be downloaded here in RTF or PDF format. Applications should be set out clearly, and preferably typed. They should be self-contained; please do not append substantial documents that contain irrelevant detail or refer to websites for key information. Please send all applications in hard copy to the Programme Secretary at De Morgan House .

Queries regarding applications can be addressed to the Programme Secretary, Stephen Huggett (tel: 01752 586869) or Sylvia Daly (tel: 020 7291 9971, Wednesday-Friday), who will be pleased to discuss proposals informally with potential applicants and give advice on the submission of an application.

Checklist: Applicants may like to note the following general checklist used by the Committee when assessing applications:

• Mathematical quality of the project.
• Well argued proposal, with a clear statement of the mathematical component in the case of a wider project.
• Well thought out and cost-effective budget, with the request restricted to allowable costs, and an appropriate and clearly identified balance of funding from other sources and the registration fee.
• The difference made by our grant to the viability and success of a project.
• Sufficient time available for publicity for the event.
• Receipt of satisfactory reports on previous grants, if any.

Deadlines and decision timetable: Applications are considered at the October, February, and June meetings of Programme Committee. Deadlines for receipt of applications for these meetings are 15th September, 31st January, and 15th May. Applications will only be considered between these deadlines in exceptional circumstances. However, please note that no applications will be considered between mid-June and mid-October. It is customary for meetings to be advertised in the LMS Newsletter, and note that its deadline is the first day of the month preceding that in which you wish the notice to appear (but there is no Newsletter in August).