Announcing SotM 2025 Travel Grant Programme

The State of the Map Organizing Committee provides a Travel Grant Programme (TGP) to facilitate accessibility and diversity at the global SotM 2025 Conference, which will happen in Manila, Philippines, October 3-5.
Taking into consideration the success of last year, the programme will also dedicate a portion of the budget available to support remote attendance (e.g. by providing access to a reliable internet connection) for those who cannot travel to Manila because of imposed restrictions, travel costs, or other reasons.

The call for applications to the Travel Grant Programme will be open until May 16,12:00 UTC.

It is fundamental to read all the information on this page before submitting an application.

For applicants

This section sets out the benefits of a Travel Grant to attend SotM 2025 and the process and criteria by which applicants will be selected. The TGP is administered by the State of the Map Organizing Committee.

Travel Grants

The Travel Grant will include a full conference ticket and a lump-sum contribution towards travel, accommodation and other expenses.

There will be five (5) different sizes of travel grants available:

Category	Grant Size	Likely Used For	Expected number of winners
A	£ 20	Applicants from the Manila metro area	5
B	£ 215	Applicants from Philippines and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia or Singapore)	10
C	£ 675	Applicants from other Asian countries	8
D	£ 750	Applicants from other countries classified as High-income economies based on World Bank country rating by income	5
E	£ 1000	Applicants from other countries classified as Upper-middle-income economies or lower based on World Bank country rating by income	8

The size and number of grants may be adjusted at the discretion of the Organizing Committee, depending upon the level of funding raised and the number of applications received. Applicants will only be able to apply for one size of travel grant, and they should apply for the grant depending on their country of residence. The World Bank rating is available online

Anyone applying for more than one grant will be excluded from the application process.

For categories C, D and E, a maximum of 2 winners will be chosen for each country of origin.

Online Attendance Support Grant

For those interested in attending the conference remotely but with limited internet connectivity, smaller grants will be made available to subsidise the cost of purchasing mobile data passes. The size of each grant will vary depending on the country and mobile data packages available, but it’s expected not to exceed £ 30.

With an estimated 1GB per hour of streaming videos in HD quality (720p), it’s expected that a maximum of 40GB will be sufficient to cover the entire conference. Arrangements will be made with grant recipients to purchase the data packages directly or to transfer the amount needed via mobile money.

Criteria

In order to guarantee a transparent and fair allocation of funds, the travel grant programme uses a points system for ranking applications. Points are awarded if applicants match specific criteria. After the application phase is over, all applicants are ranked by points, and the applicants with the most points will receive funding.

Please note that the travel grant programme aims to enhance diversity at the conference. We might reserve a few programme spots for people with unique and outstanding applications. However, most programme spots will solely be determined by the point ranking.

To ensure the participation of OSM contributors who have not attended any in-person SOTM conference, the in-person Travel Grant winners of the previous two SOTM (SOTM 2024 Nairobi and SOTM 2022 Firenze) will not be eligible for this Travel Grant.

Furthermore, once the ranking has been drawn up and the scholarships assigned based on it. The next two people for each grant size will be informed of their position. If one of the first winners communicates by the 22nd of August that he will not be able to participate, the scholarship will be provided to the people who are in this second ranking. However, those people will receive a free online ticket to attend the conference virtually. Moreover, if they will be able to attend the conference in person, they could receive a free ticket if they provide support volunteering.

Applicants receive points for the following criteria:

Nationality

The allocation of points is based on the World Bank country rating by income.

• Applicants from Low-income economies receive 1.5 points.
• Applicants from Lower-middle-income economies receive 1 point.
• Applicants from Upper-middle-income economies receive 0.5 points.
• Applicants from High-income economies receive 0 points.

Residence

The allocation of points is based on the World Bank country rating by income.

• Applicants who are currently living in Low-income economies receive 1.5 points.
• Applicants who are currently living in Lower-middle-income economies receive 1 point.
• Applicants who are currently living in Upper-middle-income economies receive 0.5 points.
• Applicants who are currently living in High-income economies receive 0 points.

Gender and Minorities

In order to create a more diverse community, women and applicants from other underrepresented groups will receive 2 points. The minority criteria will be considered with respect to the other candidates of the same category.

Students

Students, including PhD students, receive 1 point. You may be asked to provide evidence of enrollment.

First State of the Map

Applicants who attend SotM for the first time receive 1 point.

Amount required
The expected cost amount requested is to indicate in pounds sterling (£). Applications without an explicit request of the amount required will not be considered. The minimum between the expected cost and the grant size based on the residence country will be assigned.

OpenStreetMap and Community
Details of their past contributions to OpenStreetMap projects or community activities: up to a total of 4 points. Up to 2 points for mapping activities based on your OpenStreetMap username and up to 2 points for other contributions to the project as you will describe.

You & OpenStreetMap

Present the most valuable experience, mapping activities, or community moment that describes the travel grant experience in the OpenStreetMap world. This is not the call for participation; the call will be open, and there will be the possibility to submit talks and workshops. So, this is not an instrument to present talks; you are invited to participate in the call for talks and workshops if you would like to present your activities.
Please provide a short abstract about what you would like to present, with a maximum length of 100 words. No points; the abstract will be used as a discriminant for the final decision.

Volunteering

The travel grant winners will be asked to volunteer for a time proportional to 1/3 or less of the conference length, depending on the number of other volunteers. Indicate the roles that you are confident to do: Live Video Cutting, Remote/Pre-Recorded Talk Assistant, Session Assistant and Venueless Assistant (only for remote grants). For more detailed info on the roles, see the wiki pages of volunteers for SotM 2024. No points.

Payment

You must be able to fund the direct costs of your travel to SotM and be in possession of a valid passport and entry visa and other documents (for example, vaccinations). Successful applicants will receive a conference pass and become eligible for reimbursement of expenses up to the limit of the travel grant when they check in at the conference registration desk. Reimbursement of expenses will be by electronic means (details to be advised). Reimbursement may take up to two months after the conference date, provided that the travel grantee has submitted all the necessary information before the conference commences.

Only in the case of demonstrated needs and exceptional cases will the travel grant amount be provided in advance or used to cover specific travel costs directly.

How to Apply

If you wish to be considered for a SotM travel grant, please fill out the application form.

All data will be held confidential and only used for assessing TGP applications. Please ensure that the email address that you provide is regularly monitored, as the selection committee may wish to seek clarification of responses. If no replies have been provided to requests via mail for the Travel Grant Committee within 5 days, the Travel Grant will be removed from you and assigned to the next applicants in the ranking.

Applications must be received by the May 16 at 12:00 UTC.

The selection committee will aim to notify recipients of grants by the May 31.

Supporting the Travel Grant Programme

The travel grant programme is funded through the State of the Map Sponsors.

The State of the Map Working Group

The State of the Map conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap, organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor.

OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is an international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated.