3Rs Student Grants 2025

Every year, a number of high-profile international meetings bring together world-class scientists working on the development and acceptance of the 3R alternatives to animal testing (Replacement, Reduction or Refinement).

Costs linked to participation may prevent students with promising work or young scientists at the beginning of their career from attending these events. The EPAA partners are therefore happy to sponsor the 3Rs Student grants to facilitate the participation of students and young scientists.

A jury will assess the applications and propose a list of selected candidates to the EPAA Steering Committee. The jury will be composed of 4 members (2 from industry and 2 from the European Commission) who will judge.

For 2025, 2 full grants of €1 000 are available to attend the MPS World Summit 2025, SETAC 2025 or EUROTOX 2025.

Both grants cover the reimbursement of the event registration fees for the student/young scientist, as well as travel and accommodation fees, based on the expense receipts. Payment will be made after the event.

Eligbility

The criteria for eligible students and events are defined as follows. Applications that do not meet this criteria will not be accepted.

Students

1. Applicants have to be based (i.e. studying) in one of the 27 EU Countries or the UK. Citizenship may be from any country (i.e. also outside of the EU)
2. Applicants must have already graduated (BSc / First cycle completed with at least 180 ECTS credits) when applying. They cannot have a doctoral degree.
3. Applicants must still be considered as full-time students or young scientists (less than 35 years old) when applying.
4. Young scientists employed by industry are not eligible
5. No funding or reimbursement by another entity for the same student and event is allowed.

Events

For 2025, the following events below are eligible.

Application and selection process

Please send your application to grow‐epaa@ec.europa.eu by midnight of the application deadline for the event you would like to attend.

The grant will be awarded provided your abstract is accepted for an oral presentation. At the sole discretion of the jury, work presented in a poster format will be eligible in exceptional cases. The EPA’s visibility must be guaranteed by including a clear acknowledgment of support in the presentation/poster.

The jury will make their selection based on the following documents provided by the applicant

• an abstract submitted for 1 of the selected events
• a detailed CV of the applicant, including a list of publications (if any)
• a cover letter describing why the work described in the abstract is important for the 3Rs and why it should be supported by the EPAA grant
• a recommendation letter from a professor/supervisor, which also confirms the applicant is a full-time student
• proof of acceptance to the event (i.e. invitation to the event or confirmation email). This can be submitted after the deadline.

All of these documents should be sent in a single PDF. If you have any questions, please contact grow‐epaa@ec.europa.eu

EPAA recognition

The winner of the grant accepts to give recognition to the EPAA in their presentation/poster. The winner is required to provide proof which clearly shows them doing this (e.g. a photo or a video with an oral statement).

The winner of the grant also accepts that the EPAA may publish the abstracts of the presentation/poster on its website after the event, in order to promote and disseminate the research. A short summary report of the event and how the student benefitted from the participation needs to be provided.

About the EPAA

The EPAA is a public-private partnership across 7 sectors and between the European Commission and industry stakeholders.

Launched in 2005, it gathers 38 companies, 9 European trade federations and 5 Directorates-General of the Commission.

• Further information
• 2024 Annual Report

Visit funding web page
(https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/3rs-student-grants-2025-call-submissions_en)