PDF Travel Awards

The PDF Travel Award Competition is open to all Faculties and Units from UBC Vancouver with the exception of all departments/units contained within the Faculties of Science and Medicine. These faculties adjudicate the PDF Travel Award directly:

• Postdoctoral Fellows from the Faculty of Medicine must apply directly to the Faculty of Medicine.
  • View Faculty of Medicine guidelines, procedures and deadlines.
• Postdoctoral Fellows from the Faculty of Science must apply directly to the Faculty of Science.
  • View Faculty of Science guidelines, procedures and deadlines.

Postdocs from UBC Okanagan should refer to the College of Graduate Studies for information about funding that may be available for UBCO postdocs.

Eligibility:

In order to qualify for a PDF Travel Award, the following criteria must be met:

• The applicant must be accepted to present an oral presentation or poster at a conference and must be the first author of the accepted abstract
• No previous UBC PDF Travel Awards have been received by the applicant
• The research work being presented is new work that has been initiated and completed during the applicant’s postdoc tenure at UBC
  • If presenting work that is very close to one's dissertation topic, one must be presenting original and new data obtained during their postdoc tenure at UBC.
• The applicant must hold a current, active appointment through UBC Vancouver as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the time of application and at the time of the conference.
• The applicant must have been appointed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UBC Vancouver for at least one year at the date of application to the PDF Travel Award competition.

If submitting for more than one conference in a quarter, applicants are requested to submit a separate application for each conference.

Applicants must agree to submit a 200-word report of the activity to the PDFO via email within 3 weeks of the conference, granting the PDFO permission to post this report on its website.

Updated May 1, 2026

It must be clear to the adjudication committee that the research work being presented is new work that has been initiated and completed during the applicant’s postdoc tenure at UBC. Those who are presenting work that is very close to their dissertation topic must be presenting original and new data obtained during their postdoc tenure at UBC.

Award applications will be evaluated by the Adjudication Committee with the following criteria:

• Application package is complete with no missing components and is presented professionally.
• How important might the conference be to the applicant's professional development?
• Does the applicant already have conference funding? Please bear in mind that some postdoctoral fellow awards include discretionary research/travel funding, and this should be stated accordingly on their application.
• Is the applicant doing an oral presentation or presenting a poster? Depending on the field, these two types of presentations might not be considered of equal rank.
• Has the applicant presented on a similar topic recently?
• How many conferences has the applicant had the opportunity to attend in the past year? Preference may be given to those who may not have had an opportunity to attend a conference.
• How innovative does this research appear to be?
• How strong is the applicant's publication record, in particular the number of publications and authorship?