The Sleep Research Society offers a number of awards to help trainees offset the cost of attending the annual SLEEP Meeting. There are two types of awards:

The SRS encourages all trainees who have not previously attended a SLEEP meeting to apply for a First Time Travel Award. Attending a meeting, such as SLEEP, can be a very educational and enriching experience. The SRS hopes that this award will help enrich the academic development of trainees. Attending a scientific meeting can be very expensive, and this award was developed to make the process of attending your first meeting a little easier. Applications for this award are accepted in the spring and are announced via the SRS Update and SRS Website.

Merit-Based Travel Awards (also known as Abstract Awards) are given to trainees whose abstract submissions demonstrate exceptional quality. These awards are meant to support trainees whose work deserves special recognition. In addition to the financial award, winners may also be asked to give a short oral presentation of their work in a forum with fellow trainees and senior faculty. This is a great way to gain presentation experience.

Merit-Based Travel Awards are primarily intended to further the career development of students who are actively pursuing an academic degree, or who are in the early stages of post-graduate training in the areas of sleep.

The dollar amount of the award to each recipient depends on the type of the award, and varies from year to year. Historically, there are more Merit-Based Awards issued than First Time Travel Awards. Award winners will be notified by e-mail (or fax if e-mail address is not provided) prior to the advance registration deadline for the SLEEP Meeting, so that awardees will know if they received an award prior to registering for the meeting.

Applying for these awards is easy! All you have to do is indicate your desire to apply for an award when you submit your abstract for the SLEEP meeting.

Additionally, applicants must be the first author of the abstract and use the online APSS abstract submission system. During the application process, candidates must indicate that they are interested in applying for the award and provide their SRS Membership ID Number. The submission process is closed. Winners will be notified via e-mail (or fax if no e-mail address is provided) prior to the SLEEP 2010 advanced registration deadline.

To be eligible for either award, individuals must:

• Be a trainee member of the SRS and currently engaged in sleep research. You may join the SRS when you submit your abstract/application and still be eligible.
• Register for and attend the Trainee Symposia Series at the annual meeting and complete your evaluation form at the end of the Symposia Series. Award recipients will only receive their award at the end of the Trainee Symposia Series – if you are not there to collect your award, you will not be able to receive it later. Remember: Trainees MUST register for each part of the Symposia Series separately when registering online for the meeting.
• Abstract Award Limits: No more than 4 Abstract Awards prior to receiving your doctoral degree, and an individual is limited to receiving 3 Abstract Awards following receipt of a terminal degree (post-doc).
• First Time Travel Award: Only trainees who have never attended a SLEEP meeting are eligible for this award. The application process for this award will be announced in Spring 2010.
• Trainees cannot receive both a First Time Travel Award and an Abstract Award in the same year.

• Predoctoral members will be limited to 4 Abstract Awards regardless of the number of years the individual is a predoctoral member.
• Postdoctoral members will be limited to 3 Abstract Awards, which is equivalent to the number of years one can be a Postdoctoral member.
• Once a trainee changes membership category from Predoctoral to Postdoctoral, the maximum number of future awards will be 3, regardless of how many they received as a Predoctoral member. That is, this is not a lifetime limit of 7, but a separate limit for each stage of a trainee’s career.
• There will be no exceptions to the limitation policy.