SCTC Travel Awards & Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Awards

The SCTC offers two different types of travel award to attend either the International Workshop on Scleroderma Research or the Systemic Sclerosis World Congress (depending on the year of application) – the SCTC Travel Awards and the Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Awards.

Those eligible to apply for these awards are as follows:

1. 1. Clinical fellows or equivalent (i.e. specialty trainees);
   2. Junior attendings (clinicians) that are in the 1st or 2nd year of independent practice (e.g. time on faculty) at the time of application;
   3. PhD students; and
   4. Postdoctoral researchers who are in the 1st or 2nd year of research since receiving their PhD at the time of application

In addition, the applicant must be the first (as well as presenting) author of the abstract submitted to the International Workshop or the World Congress. Therefore, only one author per abstract may be considered for the award. In any given year, an individual institution is allowed only one SCTC travel awardee and one Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Award. Applicants may be selected for a Travel Award only once, and for a Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Award only once. Applicants will be asked to provide a short CV (maximum one page) including a paragraph outlining what they would hope to gain from an award.

SCTC Travel Awards

These awards provide funding towards attendance at either the International Workshop on Scleroderma Research or (jointly with the World Scleroderma Foundation) the Systemic Sclerosis World Congress. Details are published on the International Workshop or World Congress website.

Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Awards

As a result of the generosity of the Kao Family Foundation, as from 2025 ‘Kao Family Foundation SCTC Young Investigator Travel Awards’ will be awarded each year to up to 10 young investigators. The aim of these awards is to provide young investigators with the opportunity to attend either the International Workshop on Scleroderma Research or the Systemic Sclerosis World Congress (depending on the year of application) and the American College of Rheumatology Annual meeting, including attendance at the SCTC Annual General Meeting. The monetary value of each award is up to $7,500.  Awards are made on the basis of the quality of abstracts submitted to the International Workshop on Scleroderma Research or the Systemic Sclerosis World Congress: it is a requirement of the awardee to present an abstract.

The SCTC is indebted to the Kao Family Foundation for providing this opportunity to young clinicians and scientists to present their work and to network with junior and senior colleagues interested in systemic sclerosis.